Peter Kirn over at Create Digital Music has weighed in on early iPhone music apps. His verdict? You'd still do better to get a PSP or a Nintendo DS for handheld music apps. While the App Store has metronomes, guitar tuners and the like, there's nothing really exciting there yet.
It's a shame, too, because the iPhone / iPod Touch seems made for doing cool future-y music stuff. I'd personally love to see an app that simply lets you put interface objects like sliders or buttons or X-Y pads on the iPhone screen and link each one to a MIDI control sent over Bluetooth to a host machine running a synthesizer. You could turn the iPhone into a far cheaper (though far smaller) version of the JazzMutant Lemur, using your shiny new phone like a Kaoss Pad or an Akai MPC drum/sample pad. Or you could use the motion sensors to scratch samples, ala Serato or FruityLoops. I even suspect that Apple may soon drop an app that lets you use the iPhone as a virtual mixing board / transport control for GarageBand and Logic like the now-defunct and frankly unlamented iControl. The ability to control Logic remotely from inside my vocal booth (aka my closet) would be enough on its own to make me give up my tasty Nokia futurephone and drop a couple of Benjamins on the iPhone.
I agree with Peter that it's early days yet; it's just a matter of time before you see groups of kids hanging out on the corner with their iPhones making beats in real-time, a high tech version of the guys who hang around in Manhattan making music with plastic buckets.
Here we are with the long-awaited third part of my series on how to make music with your Mac. In the first installment, we looked at audio hardware; in the second installment, we discussed digital audio workstations. Today we're going to look at useful DSP (or digital signal processing) plugins and software synthesizers to help aid in your music making.
Again, a disclaimer: these are only a small handful of the options open to you. There are thousands of Mac-friendly synths and plugins out there, and you can spend as much time playing with demos and tweaking presets as you can making music. Having said that, these are a few tools I've personally found useful in my quest to become a halfway-decent digital producer.
Gizmodo's Jesus Diaz has a wonderful solution to the problem of videoconferencing on your 3G iPhone: compact, convenient and battery-free!
Okay, we get it: a camera on the front of the iPhone is probably a pretty useful idea. Although there's something oddly compelling about turning a videoconferencing session on the iPhone into a Morris Day and the Time concert....
Developer Intua has just announced BeatMaker, a sampler / sequencer for your iPhone / iPod Touch that allows you to record and make beats on the go. It appears to function similarly to hardware like the famed Akai MPC sampler, allowing you to create loops and beats and play them back in real time. BeatMaker also includes a three-channel EQ, synchronized delay and a bitcrusher, for those of you who like to rock the 8-bit sound.
No word on availability and pricing yet -- Intua is, like almost everyone in the Apple world, waiting for more info on the iPhone App Store. Developer Mathieu Garcia also says that, though MIDI won't be in the initial release of BeatMaker, it's planned for inclusion in upcoming versions, along with Open Sound Control, the successor to MIDI that's becoming standard in more and more music-making apps these days.
CityCenter is a massive new multi-use building project designed by architectural rock star Daniel Libeskind. It is currently under construction in Las Vegas, and -- according to AppleInsider -- the jewel in this glittering crown will be a supermassive Apple Store, located directly in the front of the complex right along Las Vegas Boulevard.
Quoting "people familiar with the project", AppleInsider claims that the store will boast over 20,000 feet of floor space on two levels. The article is accompanied by architectural renderings, though none of them feature any giant white apples or other clues as to the exact placement of the store.
The CityCenter project has been controversial in Las Vegas; six workers have died on the project since it began, and construction workers walked off the project last Monday after union safety negotiations with the general contractor failed, though they returned the next night. The project is due to be completed in the fall of 2009, at which point the new Apple megastore will join the two existing Apple Store locations on the Strip. (AppleInsider incorrectly states that there are three locations, but the third Apple Store in Nevada is actually in Reno, on the other side of the state.)
Speaking as a resident of Sin City, I'm not sure if CityCenter is going to be a beautiful hypermodern arcology to rival Tokyo's Roppongi Hills, or just another big ugly thing for drunken idiot turistas from the Midwest to throw up on. But if they're really putting a ginormous Apple Store front and center, I'll be out front on opening day with the rest of the rubes.
Kinesis (from the Greek kinetikos, or "damn you, carpal tunnel syndrome!") have released a Mac addition to their Freestyle line of ergonomic keyboards, which allow users to split the keyboard in half for optimal positioning. This is accomplished via Kinesis' Pivot Tether™ technology, which appears to be, uh, a cable that connects the two halves of the Freestyle.
Kidding aside, this actually looks like a nice solution for those of us whose wrists are ravaged by unfriendly keyboards. I particularly love the big Esc/Force Quit button up on the top left -- clearly the design team at Kinesis has the same build of Firefox I do.
$99 for the Freestyle and $40 each for the Incline and VIP snap-on accessories, which provide a 10 degree slope and wrist supports, respectively.
Last time, I looked at hardware audio interfaces for getting sound into your Mac. But now that you've got it coming in, what do you do with it?
You need a DAW, or digital audio workstation. DAWs are to audio what Photoshop is to image processing: they allow you to layer, mix and manipulate your sound into something resembling music. Most DAWs also allow you to incorporate MIDI sequencing to drive your hardware or software synths.
DAWs vary in terms of feature set and usability. At the high end, recording audio is a highly technical process, and many DAWs look like the control panels for nuclear submarines. But don't be discouraged if it all doesn't make sense at first -- as you learn the underlying concepts behind recording digital audio, all those little buttons and windows will become second nature.
There are a lot of different DAWs out there, but we'll take a look at a few of the Mac offerings here. These are the main contenders in the field, along with a couple of interesting also-rans.
This is the cutest damned thing I've seen in a while. The iClooly, from Japanese manufacturer RockRidgeSound, is a stand for your iPod Touch that makes it look like a lil' baby iMac -- and, as a side effect, serves as an actual useful way to watch movies on your iPod Touch without having to get your greasy mitts all over it.
The iClooly even pivots 90º for landscape/portrait swapping goodness and has a dock connection inside. It'll be ¥4,980 (roughly $47) when it hits the streets June 7th.
Perennial iPod peripheral maker Griffin announced that their new PowerDock multiple-iPod / iPhone charging station would be available in June, and now it's apparently almost here.
Available in two- or four-dock models, the charging station is designed for nerdy families like mine with multiple iPods, or perhaps just gadget freaks. It supports most every flavor of iPod and iPhone, with adapter inserts included, and it's made of brushed metal which is always a lovely choice.
No word on a street date, but presumably it's still on schedule for a release this month. The two-dock version will run $49.99 and the four-dock version will be $69.99.
Getting access to your iPhone's file system can be pretty difficult. But if you're a Windows iPhone user, you can take advantage of the free BSD-licensed IPhone file system browser iPhoneBrowser. You can browse your IPhone's files, drag and drop stuff onto it, and copy your MP3s and movies back to your hard drive. iPhoneBrowser also offers a backup system for keeping your iPhone files safe.
It even works with non-jailbroken iPhones, but as the developer says, you won't get very far with one, thanks to Apple's file system "sandbox".
Web Worker Daily's got a nice little roundup of apps that allow you to share your clipboard between multiple computers. There's tools for Windows, Mac and -- most useful -- cross-platform.
Also, as a user points out in the comments for the post, there's cl1p.net, a web-based tool that lets you cut-and-paste and share text, files, images and URLs. It's even iPhone ready, which is nice, considering nobody seems to want to put an actual clipboard on the darn thing.
These are all cool tools...but personally, if I need to copy text from one machine to another, I just email it to myself. How about you? Got any other easy tips for moving content across machines?
According to Boy Genius Report, French iPhone carrier Orange may be offering current iPhone users a 3G iPhone for €30 €50 (thanks to kol and jaxx for pointing out my typo!) if they trade in their old iPhone, as well as "generous subsidies" for users who wish to upgrade and keep their current handset.
It's well known that Macs have always been favored by musicians. And why not? Macs are the only computers that come from the factory with a starter-level digital audio workstation, or DAW as the hip kids call 'em.
Point of fact, these days it's entirely possible to make perfectly respectable, professional quality music with your Mac and some relatively inexpensive outboard gear. Gone are the days when you could only use your desktop or laptop for sequencing MIDI tracks and writing lyrics for songs that you'd have to take to a professional recording studio to realize. You may not be able to make a Dark Side Of The Moon or an OK Computer in your bedroom but if you're a singer-songwriter, hip-hop artist or if you're in a band making music with simple arrangements, you can skip the studio process almost entirely.
Of course, when it comes to music, most of the quality has to do with talent and skill, not technology: despite tools like Antares AutoTune, no amount of digital wizardry can make you a better songwriter. And you'll still need to understand the fundamentals of audio production, which can be as exciting as watching paint dry.
But if you're wiling to educate yourself a bit, there's no reason you and your Mac can't make beautiful music together.
In this four part feature, we'll look at what it takes to turn your Mac into a music studio.
A few days ago I posted about the problems that the 10.5.2 update was causing with audio recording hardware and software from various manufacturers. Today, in a follow-up post to his original roundup of the issues at hand, Peter Kirn weighs in on Apple's accountability.
Kirn's position is that Apple is responsible because all the evidence suggests that the problems lie with the 10.5.2 update, not any one vendor's drivers. "Problems haven't affected everyone," says Kirn, "but they have been widespread enough that we have a right to be disappointed. As a user, I think I have the right to be disappointed. As a writer, it's my obligation to point it out. And I hope they do better in the future."
Of course, as Peter points out, rumor is that 10.5.3 is right around the corner, so hopefully these problems will disappear and Trent Reznor can get back to making music instead of standing in for angry Mac-using music geeks in my music-related posts.
While there's still no Google Earth app for the iPhone (*cough cough*), Google Earth developer Frank Taylor recently got a chance at the Where 2.0 conference to check out a 3D Earth app from Colorado company Earthscape. He posted a YouTube video of the app, and man, it looks pretty fly. I'm particularly digging on the ability to use the iPhone's tilt sensors to navigate around in 3D space.
No word on a timetable for availability for the iPhone; the software is in private beta for Windows right now, with Mac and Linux versions coming soon.
Peter Kirn over at Create Digital Music has weighed in on early iPhone music apps. His verdict? You'd still do better to get a PSP or a Nintendo DS for handheld music apps. While the App Store has metronomes, guitar tuners and the like, there's nothing really exciting there yet.
This is the cutest damned thing I've seen in a while. The 
Web Worker Daily's got 
According to 
It's well known that Macs have always been favored by musicians. And why not? Macs are the only computers that come from the factory with 
A few days ago I posted about the 
