Music
July 17, 2007 A recent Gizmag survey found that everyone in the world has at least two large boxes of old records in the garage that they can’t play but also can’t bear to throw away (it was a small sampling). Two new USB turntables from Ion Audio will go some way to unleashing all that music, as they represent the latest generation of vinyl-to-MP3 devices. The US$150 iTTUSB05 and US$250 iTTUSB10 turntables are the next generation of the iTTUSB first released in 2006, and come with EZ Vinyl Converter software, a new program by MixMeister that quickly converts vinyl tracks directly to iTunes. Other new features include a dust cover to protect the record; built-in pre-amps eliminating the need for an audio receiver with phono-in jack; integrated RCA cables; and 33 1/3, 45 and 78 RPM playback speeds. Read More
July 1, 2007 We admire people who have the consistent ability to think outside the square and the artist formerly known as Prince has a history of innovation, in not just his music. His latest stroke of business model remodelling genius is priceless because despite being guaranteed massive sales of his next album, he has decided to give the entire album away FREE inside a British Sunday newspaper, severely upsetting the music industry. The industry has only just begun to acknowledge how counter-productive its greed and lack of vision (e.g. suing its customers) has been, so it’s remarkable they cannot see the benefits of this incredibly savvy move. Read More
June 28, 2007 If your PC holds your master music collection, you've either got to listen directly to the speakers it's connected to, or transfer tunes onto a portable device. But what if you just want to head out to the front porch, or spend some time working in the garage? Sony's got an answer: the VAIO WA1 is a wireless boombox that streams music from your PC to anywhere around the house. The WA1 is compatible with SonicStage, iTunes, Windows Media Player and suitable for Internet radio... and it looks pretty sexy, too. Read More
June 5, 2007 We've seen iPod DJ solutions like the Numark iDJ before, but now the next logical step has arrived. The Pacemaker is a 120 GB portable music player that doubles as a fully functional DJ setup, giving it the somewhat bizarre title of the world's first pocket-sized DJ rig. Read More
May 30, 2007 Wires are rubbish - and yet most of us still have great tangles of cords and cables sticking out of the backs of our PCs. This beautiful set of high-end Bluetooth speakers gets rid of one more wire from your rig - and you don't have to have a bluetooth-enabled PC to enjoy their silky wireless tones. Read More
March 3, 2007 - Universal Audio launched the UAD-1 back in January 2004, and it quickly became the DSP system of choice for a staggering amount of music producers. It wasn't the fact the UAD-1 cards took the processing load off the CPU that made the system so essential - it was the Universal Audio plugins, meticulously modelled after vintage compressors and equalisers, that once heard, immediately justify the price tag, and once used in your own mixes, simply cannot be lived without. Obviously tired of seeing so many of their users spending big bucks on a Magma external PCI chassis in order to use their UAD-1 cards on the road, Universal Audio have finally released the UAD-Xpander - an external UAD-1 solution which connects via ExpressCard, the now ubiquitous laptop expansion bus that offers six times the bandwidth of FireWire 400. Read More
February 7, 2007 With the big four record companies making a majority of their profits from completely insecure CDs that can be turned into MP3s and uploaded onto the Internet in less than half an hour, when does it become ridiculous for them insist on locking up their digital sales with restrictive DRM that hinders the rights of the paid user, while doing nothing to hinder piracy? Steve Jobs is the latest to throw his opinion in the ring - and coming from the only success story of the digital music era, his words are sure to turn heads. Read More
February 6, 2007 While music games have typically been geared towards vicarious rock-stars, and not garnering much interest from those who can already play an instrument as a result, Plato's Hiite Utaeru DS Guitar M-06 for the Nintendo DS turns the genre on it's head. Essentially an acoustic guitar simulator, you're obviously not going to be able to belt out the riff for Ironman in its full glory - but if you're looking to further your knowledge of music theory (or show off your real skills on the weirdest acoustic guitar on the planet) this is a great deal more likely to tickle your fancy than games like Guitar Hero. Read More
December 4, 2006 Gibson has finally announced the availability of the Gibson HD.6X-Pro Guitar System, the result of years of research and development, the HD.6X-Pro Guitar System, nicknamed the HD LP, uses the latest, groundbreaking digital technology. The result may look like an electric guitar, but the Gibson HD LP is a complete digital audio system that is poised to usher in a new era of music making. Guitar legend and father of the electric guitar, Les Paul, spent time in New York last week to personally autograph 100 limited-edition HD LP guitars which are being sold online at US$8000 each or you can buy one without the signature for US$5000. Read More
November 28, 2006 Music on the DS has just taken a giant leap beyond musical games like Electroplankton, thanks to the efforts of German programmer and musician Tob. Previously, using MIDI with the DS required getting geeky with a soldering iron - now the DS's internal WiFi card can be used to wirelessly send/receive MIDI to and from a "server" running on a PC. Read More
