Music

In an event somewhat akin to taking to a stage to show an audience an empty bag (cat long since departed), Daniel Ek confirmed at a press event this afternoon what, thanks to the Wall Street Journal, everyone watching already knew: Spotify is becoming a platform for third-party applications. Spotify's founder demonstrated several of the first wave of apps, including contributions from Rolling Stone, Last.fm, Tunewiki and Songkick. Read More

While traditional mixing desks can bury DJs behind bulky equipment in a dimly lit corner of the club, this transparent, 46-inch multi-touch system from software development company Smithson Martin puts the person spinning the discs - or in this case the touch display - front and center. Read More

It's been a week of intense speculation as to the role and future of Spotify within the music industry. On Wednesday of last week the UK-based distributor STHoldings put out a strongly-worded statement (apparently since withdrawn) announcing its decision to pull the catalogues of 238 record labels from the service, as well as from Napster, Rdio and Simfy. The statement reignited the debate as to the role of Spotify and similar subscription-based services within the music industry, and it's a debate that hinges on what Spotify is, or, more crucially, what it replaces. Read More

The modern smartphone has quickly become an essential part of modern living. It's a powerful portable computer, a high resolution camera, and a mobile communications center. However, if you're of the school who thinks that just because such a device can also play music, there's no need to spend good money on a separate audio player - the Colorfly Pocket Hi-Fi C4 pro may well be the dedicated music player to change your mind. Hidden within a gorgeous walnut outer shell with hand-carved motif and controlled by deliciously old-school physical buttons and sliding volume pot, the black circuit board heart of this music player is home to some top notch tech with one purpose - to deliver audiophile-pleasing, Hi-Fi-quality audio. Read More

Perhaps you’ve experienced this frustration before. There’s a piece of audio on a website that you want to use in a project of your own, and it’s playing right there on your computer, yet you have no way of copying it – short of holding a microphone up to your speakers, that is. Well, Kenneth Gibbs and Seena Zandipour want to change that. They’ve invented a little gizmo called the SLUG, that can reportedly obtain lossless recordings of any streamed audio being played back by a computer or other electronic device. The music labels will no doubt be about as happy to see the emergence of this thing as they were when blank audio cassettes first hit the stores. Read More

Way back in January 2010, a short demo video of a new digital instrument prototype was posted on YouTube by its creator Michael Zarimis, and went viral. From the millions of views, a list of prospective buyers was drawn up and the Misa Digital Guitar soon began its journey towards commercial availability. By the time the next CES show arrived, the instrument had ditched its gleaming white ABS plastic casing and gone over to the dark side, received a few design modifications, and been officially named Kitara for its public debut. The Kitara has now been made available for purchase, and I've spent the last few weeks getting to grips with this innovative new instrument - being rewarded for inventive experimentation and punished for bad playing technique. Read More

Playing electric guitar doesn't just require hours of daily practice necessary for smooth scales, clean rhythm and fluid solos, for many players it also involves a seemingly never ending search for that tone, the special something that makes them unique and instantly recognizable. This generally means procuring lots of effects pedals to help shape the signal from the instrument, or looking to existing artists for inspiration. For its TonePrint system, TC Electronic invited a number of today's top players to customize the sonic parameters of a new series of pedals so that users can get instant access to the dream sounds of the pros. Up until now, a TonePrint could only be uploaded to a pedal using a computer and USB cable but the new TonePrint app for iPhone allows players to wirelessly load a tone directly into the pedal via the guitar's pickup. Read More

A new teaching app has been released for iDevices where Mozart, Scott Joplin and Clara Schumann - and a friendly onboard instrument tuner called Toonr - join forces to make music practice less of a chore. The My Note Games system is said to be the first children's app to make use of note recognition technology and uses a suite of simple games to help kids develop sight reading, timing and tuneful playing skills. Read More

We've been following the quest for the world's best speakers for some time but remarkably, there's still room for improvement. A key issue that plagues proper sound reproduction (and thus its perceived quality) is a phenomenon known as deconstructive interference. This occurs when audio signals overlap and cancel one another out, creating dead spots which, until recently, have been very difficult to track. Now, a team from Britain's National Physical Laboratory (NPL) has figured out a clever way to make speaker sound "visible" - and they do it with laser light. Read More