Now here is a fun idea to add a bit of hammer horror to your guitar collection, Grip Studios create monster hand guitar hangers in a number of finishes including carved wood.

They’re strong and durable and will support many times the weight of any guitar or bass. You can rest assured your axe is in good ‘hands’. – teh lolz…

Our hangers are machined and balanced so your instrument fits securely. The grip is equipped with a rubber cushion so the neck and head stock of your guitar or bass is well protected. Won’t harm nitrocellulose finishes. We at Grip Studios believe strongly in our products and most importantly in the satisfaction of ourcustomers. Bottom line… we stand behind our work. Each piece comes with our 30 day Money Back Guarantee and a Life-time Warranty against defects in craftsmanship.

The Standard model is the GS-1 which come in a number of colours but if you really want to get your monster on check out the GS-2 which includes the ‘Grip Reaper’ and ‘TorchTip Silver’ models pictured above. If you wood (see what I did there) prefer a hand carved model there are currently 2 available – http://guitargrip.com/prod_Carved.htm both equally as creepy as each other. If you really want to push the boat out how about the Air Brushed series? I particularly like the Ride/Lightning.

Check out http://guitargrip.com for details and join them on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/gripstudios.

(Via Guitar Noize.)

One thing that iTunes has over Spotify’s online music service is its wireless connectivity to the Apple TV. But it is actually possible to get the same kind of connectivity with Spotify, and use it from any room in your house, with the addition of a classic Mac app and a couple of third-party iOS apps.

Step 1: Get Spotify

There are two ways to get a Spotify account: either by invitation for a free account, or by paying for premium or unlimited accounts. Once you have an account set up, you’ll need to download and install the Spotify OS X client application. Then just start browsing for music and create playlists. Just a few more steps, and you’ll turn your house into one big Spotify jukebox.

Step 2: Extend AirPlay to any Mac music app with Airfoil

Next you’ll need Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil for Mac. Airfoil has been around since long before Apple introduced AirPlay and the second generation Apple TV. Any audio application on the Mac (including Spotify), or even the Mac’s system output can be made accessible to AirPlay devices with Airfoil.

1. Download and install Rogue Amoeba’s Airfoil for Mac.
2. Choose Spotify in Airfoil as the application you want to play.
3. Choose the AirPlay and/or Airfoil device(s) you want to connect to.
4. Play music using Spotify.

Step 3: Extend your range with Airfoil speakers

One of the limitations of Apple’s AirPlay has been the fact that iOS devices themselves are not able to receive AirPlay streams, only send them. Luckily, Rogue Amoeba created an app called Airfoil Speakers Touch for iOS devices that allows Airfoil to play music on any and all iOS devices connected to your local network. This works great if you want to extend your playback to speakers that otherwise would not be connected. There’s also a version of Speakers for OS X (.zip file) that will allow you to extend your playback to all the Macs on your network. Keep in mind that you are limited to your local network, so this is not a workaround for taking your library on the go, which is only included in the premium and unlimited Spotify accounts.

Bonus: Remote control options to round it all off

Now that you’re playing music from Spotify around your house, how can you also control it remotely? There are two good third-party solutions to help with this: One will let you control Airfoil on your Mac, and the other will allow you to control Spotify.

• Reemote for Airfoil. Kai Aras’ Reemote lets turn on and off different combinations of Airfoil and AirPlay enabled devices on your network. You can even control their individual volumes, to some extent, and you can switch your audio source application on the host Mac. There is an iPhone as well as an iPad version of Reemote. To make this work, you’ll also need to download and install the Reemote Server application for Mac.
• Two Remotes for Spotify. To control what playlists you’re listening to from within Spotify on the Mac, there are two good solutions. Axel Moller’s Spot Remote and Anders O’s Remoteless. Both apps are universal, supporting both the iPhone and iPad. Both allow you to browse and start Spotify playlists, as well as search for tracks, artist and albums. Another thing they both share is the use of an open source library called SIMBL. The server software for Spot Remote as well as Remoteless requires that SIMBL be installed on the host Mac in order for either solution to work. SIMBL allows third-party developers to enhance the functionality of other applications from other developers. Unfortunately, while it seems to work for some, OS X Lion does not yet appear to be officially supported by either solution.

Since this does require a bit of setup, it isn’t quite as easy as just using iTunes and an Apple TV. But if you’re looking for an alternative that makes use of Spotify’s great new service, maybe this is the whole home music solution you’ve been waiting for.

(Via GigaOM.)

Here’s an overview and demo of the new iPB-10 Programmable Pedalboard – the first iPad pedal board.

Features:

• Users can drag and drop up to 10 different pedals, in any order, to each pedalboard, and can add an amp and cabinet to complete each setup.
• It offers 87 different pedals, 54 amps, and 26 cabinets to choose from.
• The iPB-10 uses multiple Audio DNA2 processors to provide no-latency signal processing with 24-bit A/D/A converters.
• The iPB-10 will work without an iPad plugged in to it. The 2 digit LED display on the unit that indicates the current preset bank, though there is also a master volume knob on the back panel of the unit. (At this time users will not be able to edit, adjust, or save presets without an iPad.)
• For those worrying about your iPad being damaged on the floor – You can connect the iPad to the DigiTech iPB-10 via an extension cable and mount the iPad on a mic stand.

The DigiTech iPB-10 is compatible with all models of iPad 2 & iPad. It’s available now for about $500.

Updated. The buzz around European music streaming service Spotify’s United States launch just keeps getting louder.

A report published Friday on the Noisecast tech blog places Spotify’s US launch date between July 5 and July 15, citing an email exchange between a Noisecast source and major record label executive. The emails also ‘suggest that Spotify may launch as an invite-only service to start with’ and that the subscription price will be $10 per month, Noisecast reports.

Whether or not it’s totally accurate, the report certainly lines up with other recent talk around Spotify’s stateside debut. Earlier this week, Om Malik reported that Spotify will be a major part of a new music dashboard feature Facebook plans to release at its f8 developer conference in August. And Spotify executive Jonathan Forster recently told Silicon Valley Watcher that Spotify’s US launch is on the way, but would not occur before July 5.

Meanwhile, Spotify has been getting its financial house in order for the US push. Last week the company closed on approximately $100 million in fresh funding to fuel its geographic expansion. The latest round came from a group that included Russian venture capital firm DST and California-based VCs Kleiner Perkins and Accel Partners, all first-time Spotify investors.

Why is Spotify so hotly anticipated in the United States? For one thing, with a Spotify account, you can listen to the same library of music regardless of where you are and which of your devices you’re using. It’s the same cloud-based mentality behind some of the latest big offerings from Google (with Google Music), Apple (with iCloud) and Netflix (with Netflix streaming.) In many ways, Spotify fits right into the increasingly always-connected way many of us live now.

Update: Spotify’s US launch is indeed on track for mid-July — not July 5, as some other sources have claimed — according to a source with knowledge of the company’s plans. That confirms the rumors first published Friday morning that Spotify’s US launch will occur in July.

Spotify will be made available in the US under a three-tiered pricing model, the source said: A free ad-supported service, a $5/month subscription, and a $10/month subscription. The US pricing scheme will be very similar to the three-tiered revenue model Spotify already has in place in Europe.

The company does not have a more specific launch date nailed down at the moment, because Spotify is still sorting out a few kinks associated with the US debut, the source said.

(Via GigaOM.)

Ok, so vertically you have a scale of tones. The squares across any row horizontally are all the same note, but different beats. So clicking multiple squares in the same column makes a chord as the notes are voiced simultaneously. You can make patterns of rhythm, syncopation and single note melodies by selecting squares across the rows which don’t correspond to the same column as another squares above or below. A perfect demonstration of why rhythm is the most important element in music.

You can play music tracks through Dropbox’s web interface, but only one at a time, in a very minimalist player. DropTunes provides a great web front-end for your Dropbox-synced tunes, offering Flash or HTML5-based streaming and continual playback. It’s pretty darned handy.

More »

(Via Lifehacker.)

The Ion Piano 2 Go is a new dock that transforms your iPod or iPad into a music making workstation.

Features:

• Keyboard and piano performance app for iPod or iPad
• 25-note mini-keyboard for comfortable, realistic performance
• Velocity-sensitive keys for maximum expression
• Includes free App download with four different sounds to play
• Everything you need to practice, perform and write music
• Powered by batteries or AC adaptor

Pricing and availability are to be announced.

(Via Synthtopia.)

Besides the Lady Gaga in the egg thing, and some of the expected pop horsesh#*, last nite’s Grammy’s weren’t too bad for actual artists. Jeff Beck was nominated for five, and managed to take home two– actually three, when you count his involvement with Herbie Hancock’s Best Pop Collaboration Grammy. Jeffs two were: Best Pop Instrumental ‘Nessun Dorma’ & Best Rock Instrumental ‘Hammerhead’ from the Emotion and Commotion album

Other significant awards were Neil Youngs Grammy for Best Rock Song ‘Angry World’. And believe it or not, this is Neils FIRST ever Grammy. Seems kinda weird huh. Well, when songs like Old Man & Heart of Gold came out, the Grammys werent hip enough I guess.

Another award I really dig is Best New Artist for Esperanza Spalding. This girl is a serious badass Jazz musician who sings and plays upright bass. You must check her out!

Best Rock Album went to Muse. A spooky thing about this is that just yesterday, I was watching an interview clip of the late Gary Moore in which he mentioned Muse as a newer Rock band he dug.

So, I’m officially dubbing Jeff Beck the C.O.S./ Chairman of the Strat nowadays. Any problem with that?

(Via Strat-O-Blogster Guitar Blog.)

There’s a growing number of websites and apps that allow you to conveniently stream music for free, whilst still staying on the right side of the law.  Grooveshark, Spotify and Mougg are just three such examples. More often than not however, you’ve got to put up with interruptive audio and banner adverts for products or releases you have little interest in.

Enter mflow, the music streaming service that puts the music before the marketing. At the moment it’s still in beta and sometimes acts accordingly. Still, that’s never put us off before!

Beta Beware

Despite the lure of free music without adverts, you should probably be aware that whilst using the beta I encountered a few issues. I first found out about mflow via the Chrome Web Store, where I saw it promoted as a free Web App.

I clicked install, loaded the rather fancy looking interface and… waited. And waited. Not only did I get no adverts, but no music. I then tried it in Firefox and everything worked a treat. For the record I used the latest stable Chromium and Firefox builds for Ubuntu 10.10 x64.

Using mflow

The development team have done a worthwhile job of designing an easy to use, clean and fairly well-behaved interface from which to do your streaming.

You don’t need to sign up for an account, although if you want to take advantage of the full set of features then you can choose to link your Facebook, Google or OpenID accounts for a quick sign up. You can also just register an mflow account with an email address and username, if that’s your style.

If you already know what you’re looking for then you can jump right in and search. You can filter search results by tracks, artists, albums, people (profiles that directly relate to your search) and tags.

If mflow has it in the database then it won’t take long to find, and once found you can simply click on the small play icon next to the track of your choosing. Once your song has finished mflow will simply move on to the next track in line, be it from search results, an album or an individual’s recommendations.

Once you’ve clicked play, your song will open in the mflow player. The player is always visible on your screen and remembers what you’re listening to regardless of what else you’re doing on the site. Despite the issues I encountered in Chromium, I was really impressed with the player and the approach taken by the mflow team.

Unfortunately there is no way at present to use mflow to create a playlist, or indeed queue a track from a different artist/collection/search without ending the one you’re currently listening to. I’m going to put this down to the early development stage, and cross my fingers, arms and toes that the feature will be added at a later date.

At the time of writing (and hopefully for a good while yet) there are literally no adverts to interrupt your listening experience. Whilst users of Grooveshark and Spotify will probably find the interface (and lack of playlists) a little lacklustre, there’s no arguing that listening for free without interruption is hard to beat.

Instead of adverts you’ll find a quick-and-easy way to buy any tracks you especially like via a ‘Buy’ button next to the song. Downloads generally range from 256-320kbps MP3 files that are completely DRM-free, allowing you to do what you like with the music you’ve bought.

Next to the ‘Buy’ button there’s another button, labeled ‘Flow‘.

What Is A Flow?

A flow is essentially a musical tweet, that is shared across the mflow network. You can use the flow button to recommend a track to your profile, social networks (Twitter, Facebook and Buzz) or via email.

You’ll need to connect any services you wish to announce to, and once done you can turn them on or off in the flow box. Hashtags are used to add a genre, so users who enjoy similar music can find your recommendations easily.

This is all part of mflow’s plan to marry social networking and music. What makes it really special is that unlike Spotify (for example), your Facebook or Twitter friends won’t need to register or download a client to listen.

At present mflow are offering your first 5 flows as free MP3 downloads, although you have to use them within your first week.

If you find any users who regularly share the kind of music you’re interested in then you can choose to follow them and any subsequent shares. Simply visit your profile page to check up on the latest flows, who you’re following, your followers and stats.

Similarly you can also follow tags, which will aggregate all relevant flows featuring that tag.

(Via MakeUseOf.com.)

I’ve had mp3skull bookmarked forever now, but more and more lately I find myself using it to find download links for singles (rather than full albums). Full albums just aren’t worth it anymore especially when I only seem to like one or two songs off of a 15-track disc.

So that’s where mp3skull comes in. Use it to enlarge your DJ tracklist, or just use it to skirt paying $1.99 for higher bitrate mp3s. It’s just a nice site I’d like to share and add to my collection here on the site.

(Via Doobybrain.com.)