COLUMN: INTRODUCTION — Podcasting is only the latest social and economic trend to be born on the Internet, which over the past decade has brought online shopping, auctions, dating, movie rentals, and blogs to individuals and businesses who need nothing more than a PC (personal computer) and a phone line to get access to this more-and-more interconnected global village.
SHERBORN, Mass. — Elias Fund, Inc. announced today that on May 5, 2007, ten bands from across the Northeast will perform in Acton, Massachusetts, to champion one cause known to thousands by one name: Elias. In honor of this Zimbabwean father of three sons, and on behalf of hundreds of other people and their communities, music fans with change on their minds will come together in Nara Park for EliasFest: The Voice of the Voiceless.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — One online record company, BETA Records, is inviting music fans to accept a paying job with their company. According to BETA founders Chris Honetschlaeger and Georg van Handel, you can become an A&R (artist & repertoire) representative and turn your love of music into cash.
Pfinztal, Germany — The latest version of VirSyn’s morphing additive synthesis virtual synth, CUBE 2.2, was announced today. The update comes with a vastly improved resynthesis for complex and inharmonic sounds. Also included is a free soundbank and some bug fixes related to pitch bend, and for both Ableton Live and Intel Mac users.
CHAMPLAIN, N.Y. — Kaysound Imports has entered into a new agreement with Chinese manufacturer CME for product distribution in the US market. The agreement comes after a successful showing of new CME products at the Winter NAMM show in late January and goes into effect on March 1, 2007.
NEWS: CME (Central Music Company) announces the U2 USB Cable Interface Series, a series of USB cables with built-in computer interfaces for easy plug and play connection of line and mic level audio sources and MIDI keyboards and controllers.
HAMBURG, Germany — Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH today announced an update to the Nuendo EuCon adapter module to version 3.2.2. The new version adds full MIDI functionality as well as numerous other enhancements, further empowering audio post professionals using Euphonix hardware to control Nuendo.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — The seventh annual DIY Convention has set the schedule for its 2007 event, to be held in February in the heart of Hollywood. Panels on podcasting, licensing music, blogging, MySpace/YouTube success, book publishing, digital entertainment and showcases, screenings and parties are on tap for the DIY Convention.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — BETA Records and founders Chris Honetschlaeger and Georg van Handel are making it possible for independent musicians to take advantage of the communication and promotional advantages of ringtones.
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — How is great music created and produced? What do top music producers look for in an artist? How do you find, develop and keep artist clients? And how do producers handle challenges such as creative control? The answers can be found at the PRODUCING HIT SONG 5-part series, sponsored by the National Association of Record Industry Professionals, to launch on February 16th with special guests Harvey Mason, Jr. and Damon Thomas.
GEAR: This month, at the Winter NAMM, Roland announced its newest high-end keyboard offering which takes its well conceived, but not widely embraced, V-Synth platform and blows it up to a new level, with a far more powerful iteration of their Elastic Audio Synthesis Engine. It’s called the V-Synth GT, and it’s my next keyboard.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Author Dee Dee Phelps signs and talks about her memoir “Vinyl Highway” (ISBN-10: 1412073839) singing as Dick and Dee Dee, at Village Books, 1049 Swarthmore Avenue, Pacific Palisades 90272 on Thursday evening, February 8th at 7:30 pm.
GEAR: Yamaha Corporation of America expands on their top line of synthesizer workstations with the new Motif XS, featuring new sounds and new creative tools in a redesigned, intuitive user interface. The Motif XS includes new Xpanded Articulation sounds featuring 355 MB of wave ROM to inspire creativity.
INTERVIEW: In September 2006, Peter Frampton released his first all-instrumental album, called “Fingerprints.” For the project he was able to bring together not only many of his contemporaries and peers, but also a couple of his long time “heroes” and inspirations, Hank Marvin and Brian Bennett of The Shadows. The album showcases many influences, including […]
SYNTH NEWS: The new “KORG Legacy Collection – ANALOG EDITION 2007” was announced January 18th. The popular “MS-20” and “Polysix” from the KORG Legacy Collection are now joined by the “Mono/Poly.” According to the company, these are “classic Korg analog synthesizers newly reborn as software instruments in a powerful production package.”
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — A&R Select, the leading independent A&R firm in Hollywood, has announced it will be a participant in America’s leading independent film festival. A&R Select will sponsor an event highlighting “Music for Films” at the Sundance Film Festival.
QUEENS, N.Y. — The Jamaica Center for Arts & Learning mixes the rich, vibrant and scintillating sound of four continents in its New Young Artists (NYA) concert series scheduled for Friday, March 16 and Saturday, March 17 at 7 p.m. The NYA series will showcase African, jazz, rhythm and blues, funk, reggae, and Latin music; audiences can travel the world in just two days.
ANAHEIM, Calif., Winter NAMM 2007 — Cakewalk, the world’s leading developer of powerful and easy to use products for music creation and recording, today announces new versions of its popular SONAR Home Studio and SONAR Home Studio XL titles. SONAR Home Studio 6 and SONAR Home Studio 6 XL feature the power of Cakewalk’s flagship SONAR 6 paired with a feature set, price, and ease-of-use geared towards home studio owners and budget-conscious musicians.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — A year ago, Arturia changed their logo and added the tag line “Hardware and Software.” Many people then wondered what it would mean effectively. Well the answer is unveiled today at the NAMM show in Los Angeles: Origin, Arturia’s first Hardware synthesizer, is introduced on booth 7013.
SEATTLE, Wash. — Kagi Media, producers of Mix It Like A Record, the enormously successful interactive mixing course authored by Grammy-winning engineer, mixer and producer Charles Dye, together with DUY, a leading developer of a broad range of plug-ins for Pro Tools, are sponsoring a contest in which three winners will receive a copy of the Mix It Like A Record mixing course and DUY’s Global Bundle.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — As befits anything from an album by DJ Insane and The G-Man, the first music video is one of the strangest ever posted online. The opening track, entitled “Trans Addiction,” from the U.S. album CRAZED + DAZED (Delvian Records, UPC 6-75604-10252-0), has prompted an advertising copywriter in India to use open source film footage by an avant-garde German director to create the “Trans Addiction Wine Symphony.”
NEW YORK, N.Y. — New York City audiences will have the rare opportunity on Sunday night, January 28, to hear “Jazz Hits from the Broadway Stage,” a swinging, intimate program of well-known Broadway show tunes performed by some of the city’s most-accomplished and well-known jazz musicians. It is sure to be a treat for general audiences and jazz lovers alike.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Building on the extraordinary, sold-out success of the 2006 ASCAP “I Create Music” EXPO, ASCAP will stage an even larger, more comprehensive event for music creators at the Renaissance Hollywood Hotel in Los Angeles on April 19-21, 2007. The ASCAP EXPO is the first and only national conference dedicated to songwriting and composing, bringing together top music creators across all genres with those just starting out.
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Jazz pianist Tamir Hendelman joins New York jazz bassist Jay Leonhart to inaugurate a new jazz series called “Great Duets” at the recital hall and piano showroom of AC Pianocraft at 333 West 52nd. St. in New York on Friday, January 12, 2007. The new series is hosted in a gracious grand piano showroom on the ground floor directly off 52nd St.
SWANZEY, N.H. — UrbanBoomer, the online entertainment and social networking site targeting the 35-60 demographic, announced the launch of its digital music download store UBTunes. The site, www.ubtunes.com is aesthetically appealing, more reminiscent of a neighborhood record store with browse features for a host of sub-genres such as 60’s Soul, Lounge and Exotica, Jazz, 70’s Rock, etc. and has colorful, informative and easy to read graphics. Price wise, UBTunes offers lower prices than most top level content download sites with an 88 cent song price and many frontline albums at discounted prices.
GREENSBORO, N.C. — NOTION Music, makers of NOTION(TM) music composition and performance software, have contributed content to Pass the Ring, one of several Theme libraries for Sony Cinescore soundtrack creation software.
HAMBURG, Germany — Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH is pleased to announce that its new WaveLab Studio 6 editing and mastering application is now shipping to dealers worldwide, providing first-class mastering, editing and CD burning tools for musicians and project studios at an impressively low price point.
PETERSBURG, Va. — Alexander Publishing, the world’s leading publisher of orchestration instruction, has teamed with Naxos Recordings, the world’s leading classical recording label, for How Ravel Orchestrated: Mother Goose Suite. This breakthrough in orchestration instruction includes a newly engraved score featuring the condensed Piano part at page bottom along with the Naxos Recording of Mother Goose Suite by the Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra conducted by Kenneth Jean.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Dee Dee Phelps, author of “Vinyl Highway,” singing as Dick and Dee Dee in the Sixties (www.dickanddeedee.com) was introduced to a sold out audience by Book Publicists of Southern California founder Irwin Zucker, with comedian Fred Travalena and game show host Wink Martindale, at the 12th Annual IRWIN Awards dinner and program for Book Publicists of Southern California on October 11th in Studio City, California.
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — L.A. based, A&R Select offers artist development and marketing services for online musicians. Historically, A&R refers to “Artist and Repertoire,” a job title given to the label representatives that discover and groom new talent for success. A&R Select’s staff gives the tools and resources for songwriters and performers to develop and market themselves to labels, publishers, film, television and video game companies through their MySpace music sites.
REVIEW: I was pretty excited to hear about the new disc “Fingerprints” (A&M/New Door/UMe) from Peter Frampton, a seminal guitar god from the ’70s who became enormously famous for his “Frampton Comes Alive” album and for his formant-tube guitar “talk box” sound on that record 30 years ago. I hadn’t really thought about him much lately except when my iTunes jukebox cycled around to his tunes. So, getting the new disc was like hearing from an old friend again.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Mark your calendars, and save the date! ASCAP is pleased to announce that the next ASCAP “I Create Music” EXPO will take place April 19-21, 2007, at the Hollywood Renaissance Hotel in Los Angeles, CA.
Just when you think it’s safe to go shopping on eBay for used gear, like a vintage tube mic, or analog keyboard, the phishing artists have to ruin my day. Phishing, is the practice of trying to fool you into going to a website pretending to be a legitimate site, like a bank or eBay, or to contact somebody about a product or service through real looking email communications.
Cakewalk today unveiled official details of the latest iteration of their popular music creation and recording suite: SONAR version 6. According to the company, SONAR 6 debuts an innovative feature called Active Controller Technology (ACT) and other features to “tighten up your entire band with the revolutionary new AudioSnap.”
MONTABELLO, Calif. — TASCAM is pleased to appoint Paul Jenkins to the position of National Sales Manager. Jenkins, with over 25 years of experience in the pro audio and music instrument industry, will lead the TASCAM sales effort throughout the U.S.
RoyaltyShare, a premier provider of digital royalty solutions to the entertainment industry, today announced it has been selected as a finalist for the POPKOMM Innovation in Music and Entertainment Award (IMEA) 2006 in the category of Digital Music & Marketing Innovations, B2B Solutions. In its third year, the annual IMEA Awards recognize the best new business ideas and brightest entrepreneurs in the worldwide music, media and entertainment technology sectors.
CUPERTINO, Calif. — Apple® today announced that its entire iMac® line now features the new Intel Core 2 Duo processor in every model, delivering up to 50 percent faster performance than the previous iMac. A new 24-inch iMac with a brilliant 24-inch widescreen display joins the 17- and 20-inch models, and iMac prices now start at just $999. Every new iMac includes a built-in iSightâ„¢ video camera for video conferencing out-of-the-box; Apple’s breakthrough Front Row media experience; and iLife® ‘06, the next generation of Apple’s award-winning suite of digital lifestyle applications.
PARIS — Vivendi and Universal Music Group (UMG), 100%
owned by Vivendi, announced today that they have signed with Bertelsmann a
definitive agreement for the purchase of BMG Music Publishing Group for a
total consideration (in enterprise value) of EUR 1.63 billion.
MODENA, Italy — IK Multimedia is pleased to announce that three new Bundle collections of IK’s award-winning music production tools are now shipping: The “Total Studio Bundleâ€, The “Total Effects Bundle†and the “Total Workstation Bundleâ€. Extremely affordable, with savings of up to 67% off the full prices for registered IK Users, the IK Total Bundle Series is the most comprehensive collection of instruments, samples and effects available, suiting all musicians at every level of expertise.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — RED Microphones announced today that they will begin to widen distribution of their products, making them available to brick and mortar retailers as well as other online music and pro audio dealers. This change in distribution strategy is a result of the acquisition of VintageMicrophone.com by California-based equity firm SEMA Capital Group, Inc.