Digiclef – Guitar & Bass Tabs On Your iPhone

Posted on January 7, 2010 by Emilio Pérez Miguel

Name: DigiClef
URL: http://www.digiclef.com

The MidemNet Lab event is almost upon us, and I am going to make an effort to review the participating companies I haven’t covered yet for those who are attending and don’t really know what to expect.

Today I would like to tell you about DigiClef, a service provided by Release Mobile (a company based in the United Kingdom). It is nothing more and nothing less than a guidebook with guitar tabs on your iPhone. If you think about it, that is a perfect match. On the one hand, you have the iPhone, something that is small and that can be located anywhere, even in places a piece of sheet music couldn’t be situated comfortably (like you thigh when you are playing the guitar). On the other hand, you have something like sheet music – on paper, it is purely inflexible. The user must adapt to it because it only works in one way. And budding players can miss the beat easily. But this app makes displaying the information an interactive task, as the user can adjust the tempo as he wishes – as fast as “Bodies” by the Sex Pistols or as slow as “My Thief” by Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach to put two contrasting examples. Also, you can loop sections of songs in order to get them to the tee. Continue reading →

Awdio – Bringing The Sound Of Clubs & Venues Into Your Computer

Posted on December 23, 2009 by Emilio Pérez Miguel

Name: Awdio
URL: http://www.awdio.com

Traditionally, if your favorite band was playing and you couldn’t get there for a reason or the other there was little you could do but sit in your room and sulk all night. Alternatively, you could take the Keith Moon approach and trash the room beyond recognition. Neither option was really healthy, so I am not surprised a system like Awdio was (finally) devised.

Basically, this French startup will let you listen to the sound of clubs and venues on your desktop. So far, something like 150 venues are supported and the list is growing fast. 150 clubs mean that through the site you will have access to roughly 5,000 events per month. Now the question will not be what to listen to but rather what to skip in order to keep up with your social life. Continue reading →

RjDj – Turning Music Into Something Truly Interactive

Posted on December 17, 2009 by Emilio Pérez Miguel

Name: RjDj
URL: http://www.rjdj.me

The technology we have available today might not have been put to the best use when it came to engaging users. That is the lasting impression I was left with after browsing through this site. The company (a transatlantic one) builds iPhone apps that take the music created by electronic artists, and then it lets you come up with tunes of your own by using the accelerometer from the iPhone along with the sounds that surround you. This is what the company calls “reactive music”. That is, music marked by activeness on the user instead of the passiveness of sitting while a song is playing, merely tapping your fingers away and so on.
Continue reading →

Ooizit – A Social Networking Site For Musicians In The United Kingdom

Posted on December 7, 2009 by Emilio Pérez Miguel

Name: Ooizit
URL: http://www.ooizit.com

You might wonder why are new social networks for musicians still being released when we have resources like MySpace available, and you have a point. But you must understand that to people located in specific parts of the world, the idea of networking locally is attractive by definition. That is, if they know the ones who are found within a given network share at least a certain geographical proximity, it is all the more enticing. The WWW has brought a whole elasticity when it comes to collaborating with others, yet if we were given the choice of collaborating over the Internet and doing it face to face then we all know which way we’d go. Continue reading →

Songstall – An Online Marketplace For Unsigned Musicians

Posted on November 23, 2009 by Emilio Pérez Miguel

Name: Songstall
URL: http://www.songstall.com

Every musician knows that the Internet is akin to a freeway of opportunities when it comes to promoting his art and getting through to others. But it is a freeway that has some hazards along the way. While it is true that it is a superb platform for self-promotion and selling your music, it is also true that many sites that act as online marketplaces have a series of inherent limitations that make the experience a somehow diluted one. For starters, many of these sites do charge fees that end up making the actual transaction negligible. And a vast majority of sites letting artists put up their music for sale make the artist undergo a lengthy approval process for his tunes to be listed.

If you are looking for a way of getting around these shortcomings, then I think a site like this one could be worth a gander. Named Songstall (and recently launched, by the way), it will let any unsigned artist sell his compositions without having to pay any over-the-top fee, nor having to sit through a lengthy process in order to have his music listed online. Artists will be charged only when a sale is made. Continue reading →

Your Last Music – In My Time Of Dying

Posted on November 17, 2009 by Emilio Pérez Miguel

Name: Your Last Music
URL: http://www.yourlastmusic.com

Not a single one among us would readily admit it, but those who love music like we do know perfectly well the music we want played when it is our time to go. If we said so aloud shock and acrimony would spread like a wildfire among our loved ones. In a certain (and solid sense) they are absolutely right. There is so much joy in life that just to think about something like that seems a betrayal. But what they fail to understand is that – to people to whom music means so much – a final song is the deepest show of affection. There is nothing morbid about it. Quite the opposite.

This new site made me think about that. Its name is illustrative enough: it lets you decide which songs will be played at your funeral. This is accomplished by creating an account and building up the list of songs you want played. The list will then be mailed to friends and relatives. Alternatively, those of you who are on Facebook (IE, 90 % of people I know) will be able to log in using Facebook Connect and avoid creating an account, which (although hassle-free) might be a bit tedious. Continue reading →

Tweet My Song – Share & Promote Your Music Using Twitter

Posted on November 7, 2009 by Emilio Pérez Miguel

Name: Tweet My Song
URL: http://www.tweetmysong.com

As everybody knows, Twitter is a messaging platform that lets people connect instantly via short messages that go by the name of “tweets”. Since it has an incredible flexible API, a lot of apps see release on a daily basis. This particular one caught my fancy since it is 100 % geared towards musicians.

As you can guess by glancing at its name, it will let you share your own music with everybody using Twitter. That is, you upload your song as an attachment to your tweet and then send both (the tune and the message) out at the same time. It is even possible to upload you own artwork, and once the message is out you are provided with a tracking tool to see who downloaded your song and so on. Continue reading →

TourMapr – Find Where Your Favorite Band Is Playing Next

Posted on October 15, 2009 by Emilio Pérez Miguel

Name: TourMapr
URL: http://www.tourmapr.com

TourMapr brought to mind the one drawback that some hardened music lovers cite when measuring the effect the Internet has had on music, the way we consume it, and the way we approach it on the whole today. It is a very philosophical matter, and even when I don’t agree with their position I do feel there is a paucity of truth in what they say.

They claim that while the changes brought about by the WWW in general and social media in particular have reinvented the music industry, not every change that was brought along was necessarily something that made things better. Maybe more convenient. Not necessarily better. That is only natural. In the old days, following a band around was a true test of determination and enthusiasm. And now, the Internet has placed everything so nearby that getting within range of a band’s circle is so easy that it is not even remotely the same anymore. Continue reading →

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