Feb 11
The home studio of Radiolab’s Jad Abumrad is the audio equivalent of a sketchbook, and it’s full of wonderful toys.
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Aug 05
“There are a lot of records that I love that clearly have a Pro Tools imprint of them that just sound like sh**,” answers John Vanderslice, excitedly. Though that last part really goes without saying. If there’s anything about which the musician isn’t passionate, we certainly haven’t discovered it during the hour or so we’ve been at his Tiny Telephone studio. Talking to Vanderslice is less a conversation than it is immersion therapy in musical enthusiasm. “And these are great bands,” he continues. “I actually refrain from being specific because I often know the people that have recorded them, that have mastered them. These are bands operating at the prime of their career. This represents two or three years of their creative thinking and their work, and they’re making a five-minute decision to record on this medium versus this medium. It isn’t cheaper or more expensive. It’s a tragic decision.”
Of course, anyone with a passing familiarity with Vanderslice will happily tell you there’s one subject about which he’s particularly passionate. And indeed, we’re currently standing in one of the last remaining shrines to the dying art of analog recording, housed in a shed-like building in an enclave of artist spaces at the end of a quiet San Franciscan side street. When we first arrived, a bit on the early side for a Sunday morning, the former Mk Ultra frontman was beaming beneath a patch of blue dye on platinum-blond hair. It’s an expression that won’t leave his face for the duration of our stay, even when the conversation turns to Pro Tools, something of a dirty word around the 1,700-square-foot studio, which boasts Wurlitzers, Hammonds and grand pianos. There’s an ancient harpsichord, a 1976 Neve 30-channel board, reel to reels and a room full of tape. It’s a bit like stumbling into Phil Spector’s bomb shelter.
Filed under: Home Entertainment
Jul 24
Beats unveils refreshed Studio headphones with 20-hour battery, improved comfort
Posted in: Today's Chili
You haven’t forgotten about Dre, have you? His Beats Studio headphones — the ones that started the whole celebrity-endorsed portable-audio craze in 2008 — are finally getting a full-on revamp. Well into its post-Monster life, Beats Electronics has addressed the chief complaints of the original. An extension of a modernized silhouette, the new Studio is 13 grams lighter (263g), with improved padding and ergonomics to provide better comfort. Better yet, these over-ear cans pack a headband that won’t snap so easily during extreme bends. Updated noise-cancellation tech enables the Studio to automatically adjust depending on your surroundings — it even intensifies the effect for further noise reduction when the cable (which naturally features an in-line remote and mic) isn’t plugged in.
The days of needing to carry an extra pack of Duracells are gone too; the Li-Ion battery promises 20 hours of music playback. Meanwhile, a variable-color LED displays juice levels and an automatic power control keeps the cells from draining if you forget to turn ’em off. The company’s new DSP, Beats Acoustic Engine (BAE), aims for a voicing of “balance, accuracy and emotion,” and the cans apparently leak out less sound to those around you. So, is it more than just a new take on the bass-heavy S-curve that’s managed to “Keep Their Heads Ringin‘” for five years? You can find out this August for the admission price of $300, in your choice of black, white or red.
Filed under: Home Entertainment, Portable Audio/Video
Source: Beats Electronics
May 15
On stage at I/O today, Google just announced Android Studio, an integrated development environment for building apps. Based on IntelliJ IDEA Community Edition, this new environment works as a WYSIWYG for creating applications, essentially, letting you make changes and get a preview in real time, boosting productivity and making it easier to build nice-looking apps with a bit less effort. There’s a wide variety of emulators for previewing apps, so even if you don’t have a particular device on hand, you can still make sure everything’s working as intended. Also on display today was a new development console, offering up optimization tips, revenue graphs, beta-tester control and usage metrics pulled from analytics. All of these features will make things easier to manage for developers, giving them more time to create more polished apps that work well on a variety of Android devices.
Mar 07
Barnes & Noble signs licensing agreement with MGM, Lionsgate, National Geographic and more for Nook Video service
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Barnes and Noble has just dealt up some good news for movie-loving owners of its Nook HD and HD+ slates, with the announcement of new licensing agreements with a host of studios. Lionsgate, MGM, Paramount, Relativity Media as well as National Geographic, Little Pim and Film Buff are all part of the new wave of additions to the Nook Video line-up. This means titles such as The Hunger Games, Mad Men, and the Twilight Movies will be available for rent or purchase starting today. Little Pim provides foreign language learning for kids, so there’s something to expand the minds of the little ones too. This, combined with that UltraViolet integration and the odd item at the FCC suggests that Barnes & Noble is taking its media content offering more seriously than ever. We’re certainly not complaining.
Feb 11
Sure, singers sing and guitarists strum, but you owe just as much to the engineers behind the music as you do the musicians themselves. They may not get much time in the Grammy spotlight, but in honor of the mixers and shakers who make music worth listening to, here are 11 epic past and present soundboards, mixing consoles, and more. More »
Sep 05
If you like your audio interfaces with added “on-the-go,” then the new Forte from Focusrite might be worthy of your attention. The two-input four-output device has two remote control preamps with 24-bit 192kHz analog / digital converters. If you are worried that the pocket-friendly form means less space for meters etc, fear not, as an OLED display with on-screen buttons provides visual feedback, along with control over levels and even some software (DAW) parameters. There’s a breakout cable included, and dedicated control software (PC and Mac) so even your devices with XLR connections will get a look in, while the aluminum casing should hold it all together nicely — not to mention make it look pretty. How much you ask? That’d be £399 / $600 when it lands in stores in October. Promo video after the break.
Continue reading Focusrite launches Forte, 24-bit / 192kHz portable audio interface (video)
Filed under: Misc
Focusrite launches Forte, 24-bit / 192kHz portable audio interface (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 05 Sep 2012 12:43:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aug 29
Phones, tablets and huge TVs not your thing? Then thank the stars it’s not just the gadget-mega-brands releasing products today. Maker of fine music gear, Novation, has just revealed its latest offering too — the MiniNova. The more astute among you might have worked out from the nomenclature that this is a compact synth, but we’re assured it has full-size features. There’s 37 ivories (ok, plastics) for you to tickle, while the sound and effects engine has the same DNA as the maker’s flagship UltraNova. You may have noticed that goose-neck microphone up top, and that’ll come in handy with the new “VocalTune” and vocoder features. It’ll land in your studio with 256 preset sounds, but there’s space for another 128 of your own creations. Sound like something you can get down with? Then if you sing a song to the tune of £300 ($629 MSRP / $400 at dealers), you’ll be able to call one your own from October. Excitement-stirring demo video after the break.
Continue reading Novation launches MiniNova compact hardware synth with ‘VocalTune’ (video)
Filed under: Misc
Novation launches MiniNova compact hardware synth with ‘VocalTune’ (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 29 Aug 2012 16:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Aug 17
We drive around in circles trying to find the place. There’s no signage indicating our destination — no giant, looming cartoon characters or even a logo, just a faceless building in a maze of industrial parks, about 17 miles outside of Portland. It’s a beautiful drive of course, sandwiched on a vaguely winding highway by dense Pacific Northwest foliage, past Nike’s global headquarters. Compared to the world-class tracks and fields dotting the shoemaker’s campus, Laika’s own offices are an exercise in modesty (in spite of financial ties Phil Knight), virtually indistinguishable from the densely packed businesses that surround it. There are, perhaps, certain advantages to such anonymity — for one thing, it helps the studio avoid random drop-ins by movie fans hoping to chew the ear off of their animation heroes. It also means that our cab driver does a good three passes before finally getting out of the car and asking a smoker standing outside a nearby building where to go. He thinks about it for a moment and indicates a building — a large, but otherwise indistinguishable space.
The lobby doesn’t scream Hollywood either, but it certainly offers some less-than-subtle hints that we’ve found the place: a wall-sized black and white image of classic film cameras (ancient devices, someone tells me, that were utilized on the company’s previous film), and in one corner, a tiny room encased in glass, with Coraline seated at a table in its center. This building is the house that she built — or at least kept the lights on; “Coraline” was released after its planned successor “Jack & Ben’s Animated Adventure” failed to materialize. Inside, the cavernous space in excess of 150,000 square feet has become a bustling small town of creatives, laboring away in its recesses, many having traveled through several time zones to be in its rank, like carnies hopping from town to town. Stop-motion animation, after all, isn’t the most prevalent of professions, and while we’ve arguably entered a sort of golden age for the infamously labor-intensive art form, thanks in large part to the success of projects like “Coraline,” the number of studios actually investing in the form can be counted on one hand.
Continue reading How 3D printing changed the face of ‘ParaNorman’
Filed under: Misc. Gadgets
How 3D printing changed the face of ‘ParaNorman’ originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:00:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Jul 25
Google shows off Creator Space in London, hopes to foster more professional YouTube videos
Posted in: Today's Chili 
Google confirmed a few months back that it was looking to build some studios in at least a few cities to give YouTube video makers a more professional workspace, and we now have our first good look at exactly what it’s had in mind. The company’s today released a video showcasing its new London-based Creator Space, which is said to be opening its doors in the “next few weeks” in Google’s own Soho office. While there’s no word on the costs involved just yet, the space does certainly look to be well-equipped, boasting a range of DSLRs and professional video cameras, a green screen room, lighting rigs, editing suites, and audio booths — not to mention lectures and workshops to help folks get the most out of all that gear. No further word on those other studios just yet, but you can get a glimpse of this one after the break.
Filed under: Internet
Google shows off Creator Space in London, hopes to foster more professional YouTube videos originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Jul 2012 17:39:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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