You may not be familiar with the company Tronical but you will know their work because they are responsible for Gibson’s Robot Guitar tuning systems. Well judging by this video it appears that Tronical are about to launch some standalone systems that can be retrofit to pretty much any guitar be it a Les Paul [...]
Category: Multimedia
Apple TV surpasses the iPad for Netflix viewing
Netflix are not doing too badly at the moment, for they reported, ‘Apple TV has done very well for us, and in just four months has passed the also-growing iPad in Netflix viewing hours.’
This is added on top of their pretty-looking quarterly report.
(Via ZiggyTek Blog.)
NAMM 2011: AmpliTube Fender for iPad
K Multimedia are on a roll right now, I’m a massive fan of Amplitube 3 but then they released an iPad version of Amplitube and it just looks like iPad’s were designed to run Amplitube rather than the other way around. Aside from being visually stunning it also has the most amazing amp models too and now IK Multimedia have announced a new version for NAMM 2011 of their Fender licensed amp collection called AmpliTube Fender™ for iPad, iPhone and iPod. As you can hear the emulations of classic Fender amps and effects are incredibly realistic as we have come to expect from Amplitube but the combination of beautiful graphics and the tactile interface make it worth buying an iP
How To Stream Video from Your Mac to Apple TV with AirFlick
Enterprising developer Erica Sadun of TUAW fame has been reverse engineering Apple’s Airplay technology lately, and now she’s following up her successful Airplayer software for the Mac with AirFlick, a simple piece of Mac OS X software that streams any video or audio file to your second-generation Apple TV — no iTunes required.
If you have been disappointed by how Apple has limited Airplay to their own iOS apps, you’re not alone. That’s why we’ve got to give mad props to Erica Sadun, a TUAW blogger and app developer who has been locked away tinkering with Airplay lately and found a way to extend some of its limited capability.
Sadun’s first effort was Airplayer, which allowed compatible iOS apps (including Videos on the iPad and the iPod app on iPhone/iPod touch, or YouTube on all three) to stream video to the Mac, thanks to a small OS X application she created.
Now Sadun is back with AirFlick, which streams most any video or audio file from your Mac to the second-generation Apple TV, no jailbreaking required. It also doesn’t require iTunes — drag and drop a media file onto the AirFlick application and away you go. Here’s how it works.
1. First you’ll need to download AirFlick, a modest ad-supported 1MB alpha application that Sadun is offering free on her website for the rest of us to play with. The current version is 0.04 as of this writing.
2. Unzip the archive and drag the AirFlick program to your system’s Applications folder.
3. Double-click AirFlick to launch it. The app will immediately start seeking out any compatible devices to stream to, which includes other Macs running Airplayer as well as the second-generation black Apple TV. When it’s ready, you’ll see ‘Searching’ change to the name of the first device found.
4. Select the device you want to receive your media from the choices listed; if you have only one, it will select it by default and you should see the name pop up like in the screenshot above.
5. Drag a video or audio file from anywhere (or type in a file path) and click the large Play button in the bottom right corner. Your media should start streaming to your selected device, although as you can see from Sadun’s how-to video, sometimes it doesn’t work on the first try. However, clicking the Menu button on your ATV remote and giving it another go will usually get things working as they should.
6. At this point, you can sit back and enjoy or click the Stop button if you’re finished.
AirFlick isn’t limited to just Apple TV-compatible files, either — if you have a newer version of the free, open-source VLC installed, AirFlick will use it to transcode your video into something that the ATV can play. The only caveat is there will be a 30-second delay before the video starts to play, during which Sadun slyly notes is a good time to ‘Get a cup of coffee.’
Keep in mind that this is early alpha software and bugs can be expected — we experienced one for ourselves while testing for this article after opening Airplayer on a secondary Mac and trying to refresh the available sources. Quitting the app and launching it again cleared things right up, and the problem didn’t occur a second time.
AirFlick and Airplayer show that there’s still a lot of untapped promise in Apple’s wireless Airplay technology, and thanks to developers like Erica Sadun, the best is likely yet to come.
Follow this article’s author, J.R. Bookwalter on Twitter
(Via Mac|Life all.)
Portastudio on iPad, with Faux Cassette, and Everything Old is New Again
If it’s an iconic piece of hardware or software, there’s at least a decent chance you could be seeing it in virtual iPad form soon.
Tascam’s Portastudio, released today, is a particularly striking example. The famed, budget cassette multitrack recorder, the box on which countless demos and quick songwriter creations was forged, appears on Apple’s tablet. There’s even a fake cassette tape, which I have to say is a little bit unnerving.
This is all nostalgia, right? Well, no, actually: those big, simplified plastic controls and memorable layout work because they’re so easy to use. The problem with a lot of software design of the past couple of decades is that it’s somewhat inhumane. Given endless space and often-increasing, ever-cheaper system resources, music software has been, charitably, less-than-friendly. Resembling a 70s jumbo jet cockpit, UI controls multiply and shrink to the point that they challenge all but an 18-year-old pair of eyes. Add in clunky default OS widgets, collapsible tabs and dockable windows that add still more complexity, and you wind up with a trainwreck. What these hardware emulations prove is that you could learn something from hardware – even when the need for blank space, big knobs and faders and buttons, limited controls, and standard hardware inputs and readouts is gone.
So, back to the original product, what does $10 get your iPad? If you know how a Portastudio works, you probably already know most of the answer, but here’s a quick rundown:
- Cassette tape-style transport. (Linear transport, I might add. Seriously. You have to rewind and fast forward to get around.)
- Routing to four inputs.
- Mixdown to stereo (via a dialog box, so that’s the point where you break the illusion).
- Simple EQ.
- File sharing, via iTunes or Soundcloud. (This last item is what makes this a useful tool and not just a novelty.)
- Support for ‘a few’ class-compliant audio interfaces, though your mileage may vary.
The development work was done by a well-loved developer, Chris Randall / Audio Damage. (Chris I think does learn hardware’s design lessons in his UIs.) See his blog post:
Hey, Look What I Made…
The bad news: no bounce, which seems a major oversight. Ironically, Tascam also has to admit that they don’t have any class-compliant audio interfaces. (Doh!) In case you’re wondering, they also say flat out in the FAQ, don’t expect versions for other operating systems soon — too bad, as this would seem fairly ideal in a reduced form on iPhone and iPod touch.
But the radical simplicity of this app could be its appeal. I may actually fire this up to use as a recording sketchpad, especially with hardware synths, Game Boys, and so on.
http://tascam.com/product/portastudio/
And forget the app itself: this ought to be a perfect time to look back and remember what made the original PortaStudio great – and wonder why so often those same design principles are lost.
One of the famed Tascam models, the sort that may well bring up fond memories of mobile recording. (Not quite the right model, but you get the idea.) Photo (CC-BY-SA) Lucius Kwok (the developer), via Wikimedia Commons
(Via Create Digital Music.)
BBC Launching iPlayer iPad App Outside UK
Fans of BBC programming will appreciate this latest tidbit. According to the Financial Times, the BBC is planning on launching its iPlayer app as a commercial subscription for iPad users outside the UK. United States viewers are said to be the first target. The report says that the news conglomerates plans are still being worked on.
As of right now, the BBC offers a free version of its iPlayer iOS app for UK users, who are already paying TV licensing fees in order to support BBCs programming. Since the BBC cant charge for content in the UK, the organization is aiming to offer paid subscription access for its content in foreign markets, like the US.
The report is citing Luke Bradley-Jones, managing director of BBC.com, who says that the service would start out as a paid subscription app, ‘in part to get audiences used to using the service, but more importantly so we can generate additional value from the service in terms of the user data that it gives us.’
Bradley-Jones had said that the BBC was ‘planning for the Global iPlayer to initially launch just on the iPad platform, as it provides such potential to develop a truly interactive video-on-demand service, and also maps pretty nicely on to our core target audience for the service.’
Following that, the BBC would then expand outward to offer up a variation of subscription access, digital downloads and pay per viewing, and would also aim for chance to work with advertisers to sponsor free content.
Currently, the government in the UK charges residents an annual ‘colour TV’ license fee of about $227 US, which is then used for supporting television, radio broadcasts and production. It also covers its online programming, such as mobile delivery via its iPlayer app.
So what do you think readers? If this app does come to light, are you game? Or pass? Feel free to leave your comments below!
(Via Mac|Life all.)
3 ways to improve your guitar sounds in Logic’s Amp Designer
There are a lot of guitar simulation plug-ins available for digital musicians these days. Included with Logic 9 is Amp Designer and Pedal Board – a welcome departure from the older Guitar Amp Pro plug-in. They stack up very well against the competition and are versatile in tone, emulation and layout. In my opinion, the clean amps achieve impressive results when compared to their hardware cousins.
Beyond the presets, there’s a lot more you can do with Amp Designer that is apparent. Toby Pitman goes much deeper in his excellent tutorial, ‘Logic 402 – Logic’s Guitar Recording Toolbox’. Packed with tips and tricks and practical step-by-step approaches to using both Amp Designer and Pedal Board.
In this Quick Tip I’m going to highlight 3 useful tips for guitar tone sculpting glory built-in to Amp Designer.
01 – Move the Mic
When recording a traditional guitar amp there are a two important considerations: what type of mic to use and where to position the mic. The resulting tone can be vastly different if the mic is placed dead-center or to the side of the speaker cone.
In Amp Designer you can choose between using a Condenser, Ribbon or Dynamic microphone emulation from the Mic pop-up menu.
Hover your mouse over the cabinet on the right of the interface (above the Mic pop-up menu) and the Speaker Adjustment graphic is displayed. Drag the white dot to adjust the placement of the mic. Generally, for Rock and brighter guitar tones place it to the side as shown below.
02 – More Equalizers
There are plenty of Amp types and presets. If you still can’t create quite the guitar sound you’re looking for you can mix and match the Model, Amp and Cabinet to build your own custom amp! This incredible… but one lesser known tip is you can choose different EQ types per amp.
Mouse over the word ‘EQ’ and click to display the EQ pop-up menu. From here you can choose between Bright British, Vintage, U.S. Classic, Modern and Boutique.
I find myself tending towards the Vintage and U.S. Classic more often than not.
03 – More Reverb
Rather than insert an instance of Space Designer (or other reverb plug-in) on your guitar channel strip to add space to your sound, you can set the reverb levels directly on the Amp Designer interface. Like the EQ, Amp Designer comes with more than one Reverb type.
Click on the Reverb label (top, middle of the amp) to display this Reverb type pop-up menu.
You can choose between Vintage Spring, Simple Spring, Mellow Spring, Bright Spring, Dark Spring, Resonant Spring, Boutique Spring, Sweet Reverb, Rich Reverb and Warm Reverb.
It’s well worth checking these types out on your guitar sounds. The change to your sound can be dramatic and save you from using a separate reverb plug-in!
Check out Toby Pitman’s Logic 402 – Logic’s Guitar Recording Toolbox to learn much, much more about how to get the best out of Amp Designer, Pedal Board and Logic’s other built-in tools for guitarists.
Songbird – A Viable iTunes Alternative?
With the release of iTunes 10, many people suddenly realised that iTunes really wasn’t that great, and might be starting to suffer from a major case of feature bloat. The interface is starting to become messy and hard to navigate, the icon is atrocious, and Ping just clutters everything up further.
But if your main priority remains to simply listen to music, what alternatives do you have?
Songbird will do everything you want your music player to do, and more. The Songbird developers realised that you don’t want an app to handle most of your media needs, you want an app which handles all of your music needs.
But how does it stack up against iTunes, and is it really a viable alternative? Read on to find out…
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