Music

Amongst countless other announcements in Apple's WWDC keynote today came official details on the long expected cloudification of iTunes. The famous "one last thing" this year was iTunes Match, which finally utilizes the scan and match technology Apple gained with its acquisition of Lala in late 2009. Read More

The word "grand" just doesn't seem to cut it when describing this piano. Created by Polish designer Robert Majkut, the Whaletone's beautiful design evokes its sea-going namesake slowly emerging from the water and combines this with the technology of a high-end professional stage instrument in a way that's likely to appeal to both music and design connoisseurs. Read More

German audio software specialist Algoriddim has released its djay app for iPhone and iPad. Designed to turn an iOS device into a complete and portable DJ system, the app allows you to mix an iPod music library via a touch-turntable interface or can be set to mix automatically. It's intuitive, simple to use but deep enough for some serious djing. Read More

It's been a good while coming but Google's music streaming service has finally arrived. Called Music Beta, it's available by invitation only and restricted to U.S. users ahead of rollout elsewhere. The service appears to be very similar to Amazon's Cloud Storage and Player, although no music is on sale directly from Google. Rather than measure the size of your collection by the gigabyte, however, Google will allow users to store up to 20,000 music tracks from their personal collection in an online vault, with no restrictions on bitrate. Music Beta offers users instant sync across devices, the ability to play selected music offline and intuitive playlist creation based on the mood of a selected track. Read More

Software-based guitar and amp emulators like Guitar Rig, AmpliTube and GarageBand have given players access to a multitude of sound and setups otherwise impossible to achieve without an unlimited budget, and a huge amount of storage space. While these might be perfect for the home or studio, musicians heading out on the road may want to invest in a more durable hardware-based, rack-mounted solution. Fractal Audio is about to unleash a beast of a rack-mounted, all-in-one preamp/effects processor billed as the most powerful instrument processor ever created. Read More

Since Antares Audio Technologies first introduced its Auto-Tune vocal pitch correction technology in the late 1990s, musicians and fans alike have been somewhat divided about its use. Some artists like Cher and, more recently, T-Pain have openly embraced the voice processing tool while others have kept its use a closely guarded secret, and, at the opposite end, calls for an end to robo-voice gimmickry have been made by the likes of Jay-Z. Now, the company has announced that its Auto-Tune processing technology is being developed for the electric guitar - offering six-string slingers effortless intonation, pitch perfect tuning and access to whole new worlds of otherwise unavailable tone. Read More

Jerry Garcia was ranked 13th by Rolling Stone magazine in its "100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time" feature and Garcia’s band The Grateful Dead was ranked 55th by Rolling Stone in its “Greatest Artists of all Time.” Now Garcia’s “Lucky 13” custom Alembic guitar is to be auctioned for charity on eBay on June 5. The recipient charity, Amicus Foundation, is run by sometime Grateful Dead member Matt Kelly (that's Jerry and Matt at work in the piccie) who now works full-time for charity. All proceeds will provide educational opportunities and assistance to hill tribe refugees along the Thai/Burmese border and to underprivileged Thai communities. Go to it deadheads – a piece of GD history and a good cause! Read More

Bridging the gap between computer generated music and real-world instruments, the "Imaginary Marching Band" is a fledgling, open-source project that allows music to be created by imitating the actions of playing the real thing on a sensor-equipped glove. The work of Scott Peterman, a Masters student at Parsons New School Of Design in New York City, the prototype system uses MIDI data output from the gloves via USB to reproduce the full range of notes from instruments such as the trumpet and trombone. Read More

Ever since a chance encounter with the new soundscape produced by a short-circuited toy amplifier in the 1960s, Reed Ghazala has been randomly exploring audio generation in compromised electronic devices such as talking games and toys. He has written a book on the subject, teaches others to bend circuits, and has created experimental instruments for many well-known artists including Tom Waits and Peter Gabriel. His latest work started life as an educational dinosaur game – which was broken apart, rewired and rebuilt, and then introduced to a plasma globe to become the Radiopool Thereglyph. Read More