Story Index for Articles, Interviews, News and Reviews
REVIEW: Celebrating an endorsement between G-Man Music and the fiery axe-makers known as Minarik Guitars, Scott G (The G-Man) reviews the Minarik Inferno X-treme, a design that is fueling the excitement of a new generation of musicians.
ONTARIO, Canada (MuseWire) — ASK Video Interactive Media, a leading creator of software tutorials on DVD, is now shipping Pro Tools Level 3, completing a three-part comprehensive DVD training course on the most widely utilized Digital Audio Workstation for music production today.
NEW YORK, N.Y. (MuseWire) — My Hound Media, Inc. announced today the launch of the beta version of MyHound.com, a website where users sign up for e-mail notifications of new CD releases, concerts, tour dates, and other events related to their favorite artists – from famous rock stars and bestselling authors to indie bands, unknown actors and niche writers.
INTERVIEW: Born to sing, Astrella Celeste is attempting to fuse pop music to an inner spirituality. In an interview with Scott G, she talks about how songs are a part of life, love, memory and peace. Pop music is a strange business. No one knows that more than Astrella Celeste, a tiny creature whose talent […]
ANAHEIM, Calif. (MuseWire) — A benefit concert in the name of original Iron Butterfly bass player Lee Dorman will be held Sunday June 24th at the Phoenix Club in Anaheim, next to the Honda Center. Iron Butterfly shook the music world in 1968 with the release of the monumental LP, In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, featuring the 17 minute side-long track that outsold every record in the history of recorded music within the first year of its release.
MINNETONKA, Minn. (MuseWire) — Minnetonka Audio Software ships AudioTools(TM) Batch Pro(TM), an out-of-the-box application that will revolutionize the way audio assets are managed and processed. Batch Pro is the industry’s first fully automated processing tool for audio assets.
ONTARIO, Canada (MuseWire) — ASK Video Interactive Media, known for their high-quality DVD training on music software products, has begun shipping Sibelius Tutorial DVD Level 2, The second installment in a series of ultra-high quality DVD courses designed to train composers, musicians, students, and educators on Sibelius.
RECIFE, Brazil — D’Accord Music Software, the Brazilian leader in music software, announces an innovative software – iChords – that recognizes and presents chords from any MP3, WMA files or CDs. iChords was also recently nominated for the “Best Sound Program” at the 2007 Shareware Industry Awards (SIA) and is competing with three other software programs, including Winamp.
HOUSTON, Texas — Pitch Control TV launches two new DVDs and announces a new and exciting Internet television show that is designed to entertain and entice Hip Hop music lovers, nationwide. Based in Houston, the focus is primarily on southern artists, but Pitch Control TV also showcases independent and major-label artists, coast-to-coast.
INTERVIEW: A performer needs a good name, so when Marcel Oosterom started appearing in clubs to play mixes of what was called raggamuffin’ and hiphop beats, he did so as DJ Insane. Did that help draw a crowd? Undoubtedly. But it was the quality and intensity of his music that kept the crowds coming back. […]
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. (MuseWire) — IZOTOPE, INC. today announces that Mixed In Key, maker of the leading DJ tool for harmonic mixing, has licensed iZotope Multiband Compressor and IRC Limiter technology for a newly released product, Platinum Notes, a program that “heals” your music by analyzing MP3 and WAV files and correcting areas that need improvement.
SAN DIEGO, Calif. (MuseWire) — mTraks, Inc. announces the official launch of its public beta website, now open. mTraks(TM) is a killer social music community and digital music marketplace. mTraks has raised $550,000 from a consortium of private angel investors and is represented by Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati.
SEATTLE, Wash. (MuseWire) — Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) today announced it will launch a digital music store later this year offering millions of songs in the DRM-free MP3 format from more than 12,000 record labels. EMI Music’s digital catalog is the latest addition to the store. Every song and album in the Amazon.com digital music store will be available exclusively in the MP3 format without digital rights management (DRM) software.
DALLAS, Texas — Roemtech, LLC (www.roemtech.com) has announced the availability of their innovative PlenumAmp (PMA-240). It is designed and approved for above-ceiling installations. It allows the end-user to have an audio amplification system that is easily concealed. Commercial environments such as school classrooms and business meeting rooms with data projectors need an amplifier that provides clear, powerful sound without taking up excess room. This product fills that need without sacrificing power or clarity.
NEW YORK, N.Y. — On Saturday, May 26th at 7:00 p.m., Steve Urban, native New Yorker and ground-breaking musician, will celebrate the 66th birthday of musical legend, Bob Dylan, at Kenny’s Castaways, a well-known Dylan hangout on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. Urban will honor classic Dylan tracks combined with original instrumentation.
TORRANCE, Calif. — Send2Press(R), a leading targeted newswire service, announced today it has joined the sponsors of the 12-week Battle of the Bands, hosted by A&R Select, the music industry’s benchmark in independent promotion and marketing. Over 80 local and regional bands will perform for an industry panel of well-known record labels, music supervisors, managers, music directors, and publishers. Other sponsors for the event include Music Saves Lives and Sam Ash.
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, Calif. – Academia has long been synonymous with the search for truth. This not only applies to the likes of history, law, and physics, but also to the craft of recording, producing, and performing music. ADAM Professional Audio is quickly becoming the speaker of choice for teaching students about the importance of “truth” in audio education.
CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — IZOTOPE, INC. today announced that it has licensed mastering technology to Sony Creative Software for the latest version of the Sound Forge 9 professional digital audio production suite. Sound Forge 9 is now available.
MINNETONKA, Minn. — Minnetonka Audio Software President, John Schur will be giving a presentation on Audio Workflow Architecture at the Vienna AES Convention. With more than twenty years of successful audio software application development and contract software engineering, Minnetonka Audio is defining a new standard for high quality, high productivity audio processing.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Georg van Handel (CEO) and Chris Honetschlaeger (President) with BETA Records, LLC, announced today that they will partner with Digonex Technologies, Inc. to provide dynamically priced music downloads for their listeners. Digonex’s proprietary pricing service, the Digital Online Exchange (DOE), will determine the price of each individual track based on consumer demand and other economic factors within BETA’s upcoming social music community.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Native Instruments is excited to announce that TRAKTOR SCRATCH is now available in stores worldwide. Additionally, Native Instruments is just about to kick off the TRAKTOR SCRATCH US Tour, a special workshop tour that presents its just-released digital DJ system. Beginnning on May 4th, the month-long tour includes 18 dates, with clinics being held in local music stores in nearly all major US cities.
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — Georg van Handel (CEO) and Chris Honetschlaeger (President) with BETA Records, LLC, announced today that they will partner with Javien Digital Payment Solutions, Inc. to provide a complete solution for the sale of music, merchandise, and other content from their artists within BETA’s upcoming social music community.
TOLUCA LAKE, Calif. — The National Association of Record Industry Professionals (NARIP) announced this week a variety of upcoming music industry events, including top producer songwriter Derek Bramble at NARIP’s Producing Hit Songs series in L.A. on May 18th, and Modern A&R with Joe Poindexter in Phoenix on May 19th.
SANTA MONICA, Calif. & EMERYVILLE, Calif. — Yahoo! Music (NASDAQ: YHOO) and Gracenote(R) today announced a new licensing deal allowing Yahoo! Music to offer the largest catalog of legal, licensed song lyrics from Gracenote to Yahoo! Music’s consumers. Beginning today, song lyrics for hundreds of thousands of songs from all five major publishers will be incorporated into Yahoo! Music through Gracenote’s growing database.
TOKYO and OAKDALE, Minn. — Imation Corp. (NYSE: IMN) and TDK (NYSE: TDK) announced this week that they have reached a definitive agreement under which Imation will acquire TDK brand world wide recording media business and use of the TDK brand name for recording media products.
ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. — TrueFire.com, a leading provider of online guitar lessons and interactive courses, is now shipping Marc Schonbrun’s Geek Guitar, an interactive video course designed to bring the latest technology to guitarists for recording and performing.
REVIEW: Scott G goes back to old habits by writing a batch of CD reviews. As in his prior reviews, the musical styles he covers are all over the place, from the hip hop of Enjae to the glorious organized noise of Nine Inch Nails, from East/West chanteuse Noa Dori to two very diverse soundtracks […]
SEATTLE, Wash. — iLike, inc, the six-month-old social music discovery service, announced today that it has surpassed one million registered users and is now processing over 200 million monthly track plays based on enabling users to log their listening habits on their iPods and PCs. The company also announced new concert-discovery features with event listings provided by Ticketmaster.
SEATTLE, Wash. — As a co-producer and music supervisor of the buzz-heavy indie flick “A Lawyer Walks into a Bar,” Evan Fitzmaurice had to match top-quality film content with a similarly powerful soundtrack. He began by looking online for original music aggregators, and was impressed by GarageBand’s “excellent interface and search function.”
COLUMN: CHAPTER TWO: Outline of Producing a Show — Choosing to create your own Podcast can be approached in several ways, which will vary depending on your goals. For the kinds of Podcasts we’re going to cover, it’s generally assumed you have a personal computer with an Internet connection, which would be the primary necessity for the typical form of Podcasting.
REVIEW: You can never be too rich or have enough disk space, or be too paranoid about data back-up. In recently deciding it was time to do some back-ups of audio and imaging projects, and other valuable docs, and put them in a fire-proof safe, after somebody’s house burnt down nearby, I chose to look at external hard drives.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — If you are an unsigned music artist, BETA Records invites you to a special event May 1st at the Sunset Strip Key Club as part of MUSEXPO 2007, the annual gathering of the world’s leading music executives, producers, managers, and new media content experts.
NEW YORK, N.Y. — SoJo Artist Management is pleased to announce the recent signing of New York based Live Society. Hot off their New York win of Bodog’s $1 Million Battle of the Band competition, the band is ready to take the world by storm. Representing a modern day twist on the R&B and Classic Pop sound, Live Society’s danceable grooves and rich harmony driven songs are sure to appeal to all ages.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — BETA Records Mexico announces additional international expansion which follows the success enjoyed by U.S. and German sites of the online record company headed by founders Chris Honetschlaeger and Georg van Handel. BETA Records actively finds, produces, and showcases unsigned artists and distributes content to fans via digital channels.
HOLLYWOOD, Calif. — A&R Select, the music industry’s benchmark in independent promotion and marketing, is currently hosting an online Battle of the Bands competition held at BB King’s Bar and Grille, located at Universal CityWalk. Over 80 local and regional bands will perform for an industry panel of well-known record labels, music supervisors, managers, music directors, and publishers.
COLUMN: With the BBC announcement of a new version of the Sgt. Pepper album (cover versions of Beatles songs by mostly mediocre bands), Scott G suggests we take this concept to ridiculous heights (or depths). Imagine the Insane Clown Posse singing Merle Haggard.
NAB 2007 – Las Vegas — ADAM Audio, a leading provider of top quality professional audio reference monitors, announces the NAB debut of its A7 near-field monitor. This active, 2-way reference tool offers broadcast engineers, production directors, producers, and talent the most accurate audio reproduction available today.
COLUMN: Scott G offers a warning to musicians: the world says it wants originality, creativity, boundless imagination, innovation, and new ideas, but it just isn’t so. The fact is that you can go too far. Handcrafting your own CD packaging, for example. Or covering it with wax before sending it to anyone.
JAMAICA, N.Y. — The Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning (JCAL) is pleased to present “A Jamaica, Queens Thing”: Rap and the Crack Era in South Jamaica, organized by guest curator Herb Tam. The opening artist reception takes place Saturday, April 14, 2007, 4 – 7 pm.
MADISON, Wis. — Sony Creative Software announced today the release of Sound Forge 9 Professional Digital Audio Production Suite. Sound Forge 9 new features include multichannel file recording, editing and processing, phase scope metering, and Dolby(R) Digital AC-3 export.
PFINZTAL, Germany — Hot on the heels of their 1.0 launch announcement in March, VirSyn has already posted a patch to their new chaos synth called POSEIDON – the Ocean of Sound, which updates the program with both new features and the expected minor bug fixes for a new product.
PORTLAND, Ore. — Zack Orr Music proudly announces the release of “Francisco the Man.” Francisco the Man is 12 songs, each coinciding with the months in a year. As the album progresses through the four seasons, the instrumentation and overall sound changes as well. Zack recorded natural sounds from each of the four seasons and arranged them as rhythmic beds and soundscapes throughout the record.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Power Arts Company, Inc. release a three album series for the Kindergarten and Pre-K crowd performed by a new cartoon band called The Blankies(TM). The songs not only overcome the “babyish” sound of most children’s music, they also address three important uses of music.
HOUSTON, Texas — Paid in Full Entertainment, Inc. released today the new CD from DJ / artist Mista Madd which is being distributed by Memphis based Select-o-Hits distribution. The new CD covers various topics and features Houston notables Paul Wall, Slim Thug, HAWK, Lil Flip, Chamillionaire, Shei Atkins and others.
COLUMN: Commercial makers are grabbing songs faster than ever before. Can’t quite remember the title of that oldie? Want to know who does that new techno funk dance groove track? Scott G is rather fond of some Web sites that help you out and let you help as well.
NEW YORK, N.Y. — Acclaimed jazz bassist Jay Leonhart will premiere his new one man-one bass show, “Nukular Tulips”(TM) on March 24 at Stage Left Studio in New York City. Leonhart, who has played with everyone from Tony Bennett and Marian McPartland to James Taylor and Queen Latifah, still seems to have enough time in between bass notes to allow him to take a good look around the world to see what’s going on.
GREENSBORO, N.C. — NOTION Music is pleased to announce that Inal Bilsel of London is the grand prize winner of the company’s first Realize Music Challenge, a competition that drew entries from composers across the globe.
COLUMN: CHAPTER ONE: The Basics — If you’ve read the introduction to this series of articles, you may have an idea of what a Podcast is all about, but now we’re going to start getting into the details; the specifics of what, where and how to listen to or build a Podcast program.
COLUMN: Writing about music is like knitting about sculpture. Sure, that’s a paraphrase of a more famous line, but isn’t that the kind of thing music critics do? Scott G is happy to disparage those pencil-neck geeks of the music press (even while his alter-ego The G-Man fears the result when his “Crazed + Dazed” album is released).
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Electronic artist The G-Man and country keyboard player Doug Colosio announce the formation of Golosio Publishing, a music licensing company which will supply songs for film, TV, games and commercials. “With six dozen new production music tracks and well over a hundred songs, we’re ready to create any type of sound you can imagine,” states Scott G, who is also the recording artist known as The G-Man.