Interview: Music Flies High with SoundOrbit
INTERVIEW: Bringing indie artists together with fans is just the start for SoundOrbit. Their goals include creating a synergistic relationship between artists, agents, managers, record companies, distributors, producers, radio, film, advertising, and venues for live performances. The ideas come tumbling at you in this interview with SoundOrbit founder Alisa Mikeal. Scott G: How did SoundOrbit […]
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. — It didn’t take long for music marketing website, SoManyMp3s, to become one of the most popular promotional tools for independent artists seeking to elevate activity on their MySpace page, say the project’s founders. The service has one goal: to help independent artists reach “MySpace Celebrity Status” by gaining friends, and with the help of plays and visits.
MINNETONKA, Minn. — Minnetonka Audio Software announces AudioTools(TM) Consult(TM), a workflow assessment, custom engineering and software development service designed to automate complex audio workflow processes.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Music lovers are used to ringtones on mobile phones but music from independent artists can be difficult to find. Free software on the BETA Records web site (www.betarecords.com) is changing all that.
MUNICH, Germany — Sonja Armisen, Tango Fusion Club founder, announces the release of a second CD, “TangoFusionClub Volume Two: Electronic Tango Flavoured Beats,” which has a distinctly refined, and electronic flavor. The decision to release this CD followed the amazing success of TangoFusionClub: Electronic Tango Beats Volume One.
LOS ANGELES, Calif. — Personifying the cabaret genre, Ute Lemper is known for her moody interpretations of songbook standards, laced with witty asides and knowing looks, weaving an atmosphere that draws in audiences like few other performers today.
HAMBURG, Germany — The Oscar winning film The Queen featured Nuendo throughout its post production processes, with all editing, rerecording and premixing done on Steinberg’s Nuendo Media Production System software. The audio for The Queen, which was nominated for six Academy Awards, was transferred through several studios all using Nuendo as their primary audio post platform.
LONDON, U.K. — ORCA from FXpansion is an experimental monosynth based on detailed and accurate models of analogue synthesizer circuits and components. And now Orca is available in RTAS (Pro Tools) and AU (Mac) formats, as free downloads. ORCA was previously released in VST format.
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.
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.
COLUMN: The marketing ideas behind many of the commercials may have lacked brilliance, but the music in the spots was frequently outstanding. Scott G gets into the sweeping orchestral scores, the pounding rock rhythms and the ‘moderne’ sound of lounge.
COLUMN: There were approximately 9,000 minutes of advertising during the 2007 Super Bowl and a great many of them had very well-crafted music. Sure, some were awful, but most sounded very good. Scott G tries to ignore the marketing message and concentrate on the sonics. 
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.
NAMM REPORT: The developers, inventors, creators and programmers found at NAMM (formerly the National Association of Music Merchants) are a fascinating bunch of people. Some are geniuses. Some are certifiable. Some are both. And we must face the fact that some are electronic device zealots with an expensive hobby instead of a 401(k).
NAMM REPORT: The National Association of Music Merchants, now known simply as NAMM, held a lovely little party for four days in January. With displays of gear from 1,500 manufacturers and the hallways packed with 85,000 attendees, it was a show that was a sonic circus of electronic innovation.
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.
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.”
REVIEW: Take a pianist with a classical repertoire and a guitarist who grew up playing rock; turn them loose and you might get Davison/Coleman, whose first album wraps you up in melodies that reach back to the seventies and stretch forward to music that could come from a distant peaceful planet. 
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.
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.
