Tag Archives: create

GarageBand Comes To The iPhone And iPod Touch

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iPhone and iPod Touch Users Can Now Run GarageBand On Their iDevices

After having been introduced on the iPad earlier this year, Apple’s GarageBand has become available on the screens of iPhone and iPod Touch users everywhere. It costs $4.99 (iTunes link), and much like its iPad counterpart it lets you plug in your electric guitar and mic to record yourself playing. Plus, the app comes with touch instruments like keyboards, drums and basses. And tons of sound effects are also included, along with a sampler and more than 250 professional loops you can use as backing for any song of yours.

These are the full features of GarageBand, as listed by Apple itself.

• Create custom chords for Smart Instruments
• Support for 3/4 and 6/8 time signatures
• Reset song key without transposing original recordings
• Transpose songs in semitones or full octaves
• Additional quantization options for recordings including, straight, triplet and swing
• New audio export quality settings for AAC and AIFF (Uncompressed)
• Arpeggiator available in Smart Keyboard
• Adjustable velocity settings for Touch Instruments
• Numerous enhancements, including automatic fade out and improved audio import options

PlaylistHQ – Create Playlists For Upcoming Concerts

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Name: PlaylistHQ
URL: http://www.playlisthq.com

PlaylistHQ is a simple but slick web tool that lets you create playlists for any concert that’s coming up soon, and that you plan to attend. You can create them, and then you can have them shared with all the music nuts that you’ve befriended on Facebook. What better way to convince them that missing any upcoming concert would be a mistake they’ll live to regret forever and ever? What better way to ensure you won’t have to attend a concert on your own, and be unable to go to the bathroom because someone will take your place?

PlaylistHQ uses the Spotify API to get all its data, and once they’ve been created playlists can be searched both by location and by Songkick username.

When having concerts displayed by location, the site lets you view a calendar with all the concerts that will be held right where you live. Or where you would love to live. If you have got an incurable fixation with London, you can see all the shows to be played there as the month runs its course. And then go cry in the corner for having been born on the bayou.

If there’s something to be said about the site, is that it’s decidedly minimalist.
But not that such a thing is a bad thing, of course. Just look at Andy Summers. See how far he got? The guy’s the embodiment of success! Revered by guitarist young and old! A paragon of musical expressivity! (Checks the “Synchronicity” album)... shit, he was the one who wrote and sang “Mother”. Dammit. Next time, I’ll be more careful with the examples I choose…

Fans Forever And Ever – Build A Creepy Fanpage For The Band You Love

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http://fansforeverandever.com

Name: Fans Forever And Ever
URL: http://fansforeverandever.com

Fans Forever And Ever is a new service that was created on the recent Music Hack Day in New York. What it does is to let you generate a fanpage for any band you could think of. “Big deal”, I hear you say. “I can get myself a blog and do that any old day”.

Well, the thing with Fans Forever And Ever is that it can come up with fanpages resembling those that Geocities let people create back in the day. These look completely out of place today (Yahoo pulled the plug on Geocities last year), and such pages have a truly obsessive feel to them.

They feature archaic designs, and they are generated just by supplying the name of the band in question, and they include lyrics, pictures, poems and the kind of content only those that go through their idols’ garbage would include on a fanpage.

Don’t believe it? Well, just to settle the discussion of how creepy a page created through this service can be, I’ll tell you what happened when I tried it.

I used this service to create three independent Who fanpages.

And in all three cases, the lyric that was automatically highlighted was no other than “Uncle Ernie”.

Believe me, folks… a Who fanpage can’t get any gloomier.

the who fanpage uncle ernie

DAOmusic.fm – Create & Share Playlists For Every Mood You’re In

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DAOmusic

Name: DAOmusic
URL: http://www.daomusic.fm

The potential a song has for catharsis only goes so far. It all becomes limp after a while. That is, “It’s All Over Now Baby Blue” can’t be your break-up song for ever. Notwithstanding how excellent any song is, if you listen to it for ages it just stops gelling.

I’m sure you agree with that. And I’m also sure you wonder just where to go in order to find fresh songs to fill the air with. Well, this new site might just provide you with all you need to reach the height of ecstasy, or hit the deepest recesses of pathos.

DAOmusic is a website where you can create playlists reflecting your every mood, and share them with friends and strangers alike.

These are some examples of playlists currently found on the site: “I’m under my guilt”, “I’m walking in the garden leisurely”, “Super Mario Bros Forever!”… Songs for just every occasion can be found here.

This site is usable for free, and if you have a Google, Facebook or Twitter account then you already have a DAOmusic account.

Oh, and if you see a playlist named “The 10 Who songs that make me play air drums maniacally every time” then you needn’t ask who has created it…

Isle Of Tune – Where The Streets Have No Name, But Can Create Music

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IsleOfTune

Name: Isle Of Tune
URL: http://www.isleoftune.com

This is as bizarre as it is endearing. Isle Of Tune is for all the people who love music but can’t even play the triangle. On this site, they will be able to come up with songs… by building a city! No kidding.

Isle Of Tune works by having you place elements such buildings, street lamps and trees that actually double as musical instruments (!). That is, once they are in position, these instruments will be played by all the cars that drive past them. Continue reading →

Mixtap.in – Making Mixtapes Fashionable Once Again

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Mixtapin

Name: Mixtap.in
URL: http://www.mixtap.in

Mixtapes ruled. They gave us one of the first true glimpses of freedom when it came to making others experience music in the same way that we did. The way we had arranged the songs was to be the de facto way to experience these artists for anybody who came into possession of the mixtape later on. Any person who wanted to know you better just had to get the tape you had assembled and play it.

Mixtapes also had other ramifications. For example, I can’t think of the song “Runaway Train” without thinking of the last seconds of an ad that played right before the version someone had taped for me started. Even when I am listening to “Black Gold”, in the short silence that separates “Tied To The Tracks” from “Runaway Train” the final seconds of that ad play in my mind. It will probably be like that for evermore.

Maybe you are too young to know all this. If that is so, I have the perfect site for you. It is named Mixtap.in, and it will let you create a mixtape for others to enjoy. You can add up to twelve tracks for each mixtape that you create, and you can then label it. If the mixtape that you have assembled is meant to sound like Dr. Hook then you simply state so. Others will be able to find it in a much easier way then, as all the featured mixtapes are readily searchable. Continue reading →

Tony-b.org – For The DJ In Everybody

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Tonyb

Name: Tony-b Machine
URL: http://www.tony-b.org

Every rock & roller has got a bit of a shady past that hangs like a sword of Damocles over his head. I am no exception. Before listening to The Who, before listening to Oasis, before listening to The Sex Pistols… can you ever dare to guess which artist I intently listened to?

DJ Bobo.

Those of you who are still reading (and who haven’t wiped MusicKO from their bookmarks after such debilitating news) would be less shocked when you learn I was that keen on DJ Bobo only because my older brother (always a role model to me) was a rabid fan of electronic music. And you will feel relieved when I tell you that I never, ever lay a hand on his Ace Of Base and 2 Unlimited CDs.

[My brother from behind my back:] Hey, have you seen my copy of “The Sign”? Wait, here it is, what was it doing in your backpack??

Shit, man!! Keep quiet for a second, will you?!

Ahem.

Before it gets any worse I am telling you about this new app.

Named the Tony-b Machine, it will let you create your very own piece of electronic music. And the way you can get around doing that is dead clever (and entertaining, too). You simply pick the relevant effects (”Kick”, “Snare”, “Hi Hat” and “Cymbal”) and push the pertinent keys as you go along.

Tonyb Console

The results are actually very impressive, and one of the best bits is that you can proceed to save and upload them for everybody to listen to. Continue reading →

Create Music… By Drawing!

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In the same way that every avid player of video games longs to create his own game, every lover of music can’t think of anything better than creating his very own song. In both cases, the technicalities at play make these objectives something that can be realized by studying a lot only, and learning a writing language that is not within everybody’s reach.

Well, we are living at a time in which these things that were previously unattainable are losing all their mysticism. Just look at the many iPhone apps that let you play an instrument, for example. And now, the ones who already have an iPad will be able to use it to create music, regardless of how technically-minded they are. Actually, they can be utter neophytes – an app that is about to be released will suit them just perfectly.

It will go by the name of Artikulator, and it will let anybody compose a song by moving his fingers around the screen of the iPad. The demo that is pasted below puts it all into clearer perspective:

As you can see, many adjustments are yet to take place. That is, you are not coming up with a song to rival “Wonderwall” in terms of melody… yet. But just give this app some time. I frankly believe it will be more than a toy or a passing curiosity.

RjDj – Turning Music Into Something Truly Interactive

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RJDJ

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 →