Music

It’s no big secret that wearing in-ear devices, such as stereo earphones or hearing aids, can cause the ears to hurt over time. According to the engineers at Colorado’s Asius Technologies, however, this isn’t due simply to a poor fit or high volume levels. Instead, it’s caused by an “acoustic reflex,” that no amount of earbud-reshaping or decreases in volume will alleviate. There are reportedly ways of minimizing or even eliminating what’s known as “listener fatigue,” though – these include a flexible membrane, and even an inflatable ear-tip device created by Asius. 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

Renowned computer generated music innovator Max Mathews has died at the age of 84. Back in 1957 Mathews wrote the program that enabled an IBM 704 mainframe computer to play a composition lasting 17 seconds – an achievement recognized as one of the first examples of digital synthesis of music on a computer. For the next 54 years Mathews pioneered the field of digital audio research and devoted most of his life to learning how computers could aid musicians in performance. Read More

For many of us, washing clothes by hand is no longer a necessity. Yet the simple ridged device used before the advent of washing machines is still in production today and continues to be used all over the world. Leaving soapy water well behind, the washboard found a new life in the hands of musicians playing everything from skiffle to dixieland, and jazz to blues. Solo guitar players can now provide their own inexpensive snare-like percussive accompaniment, by attaching a Pik'N Board to their instrument. The mini-washboard is positioned below the picking area of an acoustic guitar, with players extending the pick stroke to tap out a latin beat or scrape in some cajun spice. Read More

As most musicians will tell you, playing in front of a live audience is what makes it all worthwhile. Unless you're successful enough to have a dedicated road crew, though, loading and unloading the equipment can be backbreaking work. All that could change thanks to an experiment in "what if" amp building by Tim Brennan of Brisbane's Tym Guitars. He says that late nights, stupid conversations and an obsession with building things that people might laugh at has resulted in the FAMP – a 50W guitar amp combo encased in a foam housing. Read More

Imagine a Wii that lets you play a musical instrument with your brain without touching strings or a keyboard. That's exactly what this "proof of concept" brain-computer-music-interface (BCMI) is designed to do – it uses brain waves and eye movement to sound musical notes, so even a person with "locked-in-syndrome" could participate in creative activity analogous to learning to play a musical instrument. Developed by a team headed by Eduardo Miranda, a composer and computer music specialist from the UK's University of Plymouth, the BCMI can be set up on a laptop computer for under $3,500 (including the computer). For people who are disabled, assistive technology usually aims at day-to-day functioning and largely ignores the unique aspect of being a human – creativity. This is different. Read More

Japan's Final Audio Design has been turning out audiophile-pleasing, premium audio equipment since the 1970s, and has just unveiled its latest high-end earphones. Taking the core design behind the company's Opus horn speaker series, the Piano Forte X-VIII Series is said to deliver a concert hall-like sound experience thanks to a large diameter driver unit installed in a soundstage-expanding metallic earpad housing. However, there is quite a heavy price to pay for such lightweight dynamic clarity. Read on for more details ... Read More

On more than one occasion I have been faced with a floor full of daisy-chained analog effects pedals and, to amusement of onlookers, have had to perform intricate tap dancing moves to switch features on and off. Now two German musicians have added another dimension to effects unit control that may well save me some leg work - infrared expression and function control. All of the functions available on the KOMA Elektronik BD101 analog delay and gate can be controlled by control voltage (CV) via patched infrared sensors next to the true bypass footswitch. Read More

Zoom Corporation has announced the availability of its new R8 music production solution. In addition to an 8-track recording device with built-in stereo microphones, the unit also acts as an audio interface for your computer, a mouse-free control surface for digital audio workstation (DAW) software and an eight voice pad sampler. Read More