New IMN Podcast and OS X Lion Compatibility
The new IMN podcast is up - download it or listen at the site or on WFYI HD2, Thursdays at 4pm and 10pm.
I'm gonna wait just a little bit before upgrading to Lion - I'm working on an older laptop and I'm thinking some more RAM may be in order before making the plunge. I also want to make sure the software I used primarily (Reason, Record, Soundtrack Pro, and the odd amp sim) are compatible. Things are looking good according to Sweetwater and Roaring Apps, but I like Create Digital Music's take on this - wait for the all clear.
New IMN Podcast and Cloud Music Services
The new IMN podcast is up - download it or listen to it at the site or on WFYI HD2, Thursdays at 4pm and 10pm.
Hot on the heels of Spotify announcing their US trial run and expanding streaming services, Amazon announced yesterday their $20/year unlimited music storage plan, plus free storage for all tracks purchased on Amazon and an iPad app coming soon. That's $5 cheaper than the iCloud offering from Apple and includes unlimited storage. But you have to upload it all - have fun with that.
And, if you feel like supporting the artists providing this music for you, take into account the information in this graphic and consider maybe a CD or direct donation or something. Click to embiggen, as you'll need a lot of screen real estate to read and see the relationships.
New IMN Podcast and Avid Scorch
The new IMN podcast is up - download it or listen at the site or on WFYI HD2, Thursdays at 4pm and 10pm.
For the past few months, I've been asking for an iPad app that not only displays sheet music, but also permits alterations and transpositions and such. And Avid made said app - Avid Scorch. While it's not a fully functional sheet music creator, it does work with Sibelius (my notation editor of choice FTW) to move scores onto the iPad for reading use. Did I change a score to show the melody for a bass guitar? Oh, yes. Stupid key changes? Handled it with ease. Pull a particular part from a full score? Absolutely. For a first start, this pretty much filled out what I'd need. It's great to see a product get it right from the start.
Cloud Music
So now that the major players are represented with Apple's announcement today, it's clear that cloud music has yet to intersect with streaming music. All three (Amazon, Google, and Apple) require some form of ownership, either via music services or download, before you can listen to the music. True streaming services like Mog, Spotify, or Rdio don't require file ownership and do provide some downloadable content, although it goes away when you unsubscribe.
What cloud music does provide is backup offsite - it's not going to replace my RAID NAS drive at home as far as storage and redundancy, but it does mean you're not going to lose what you buy (theoretically, depending on the service). And Apple's match service does save a ton of time, although it doesn't back up files that are on iTunes. The $25/year charge theoretically helps compensate artists for stolen tracks, too. I'd want to see the accounting on that, though. Something tells me the money won't make it all the way back through some pipes.
To be fair, the only service I've used to this point is the Google music beta, and it's serviceable. For now. They did put a free Warrant track on my account when I asked for the free metal song pack, though, and that's just wrong.
Shorter me - I like the way this is going, and Apple's iCloud product has a lot to offer. But it's not all there yet.
What Would Have Happened?
Amazon and Google have cloud-based music lockers, and next week's announcement from Apple surely promises a third option tied to an iTunes account. All of this should sound familiar - it's basically what mp3.com was doing years ago. The difference is that mp3.com used a physical disc to verify ownership, while these cloud services demand either uploading or purchase from a music service. That's a significant difference, but how much easier would everything have been if, instead of suing the service out of existence, the major labels had worked with mp3.com. You'd have a third-party service streaming purchased tracks as a value-added proposition to music sales, which is what everybody seems to want now. It only required a ton of money and lawsuits to hash it out back to the starting point?
New IMN Podcast and Drum Loops
The new IMN podcast is up - download it or listen at the site or on WFYI HD2, Thursdays at 4pm and 10pm.
The fact that Keith LeBlanc made 9 volumes and a little over 7 GB of drum loops available for a $1 a volume (additional donations accepted, of course) is amazing. The fact that he did it after dealing with legal issues over these samples for many, many years is even more amazing. And the quality (as to be expected) is stellar - I may be biased by my affection for Tack>>Head's catalog, but this is also the drummer responsible for many, many, MANY classic beats. Look him up. Tons of inspirational stuff here, and I hope to be making a bunch of music with it soon (or just trying to release my inner Doug Wimbish).
Hot on the heels of that discovery comes Clyde Stubblefield's (you KNOW Clyde Stubblefield, right?!) release of vinyl and electronic versions of his own for use by DJs and musicians for their own purposes. They've been doing it for this long anyway, why not make it easy and get some money out of it, right? I haven't seen anybody think the terms for Stubblefield were too onerous yet (credit plus 15% of commercial sales), and sample libraries are hardly new stuff. But these are big names, and let's face it - we (as musicians and fans) kinda owe them anyway. And this is an easy way to do it and get to interact with some living history (even on disc).
Obviously, there are drawbacks - there's no interaction or custom instructions to go with this. Then again, they probably weren't going to get on a plane and fly to you anyway. I'm more than happy to take what I can get here and throw some bucks their way.
New IMN Podcast and PocketGK Notes
The new IMN podcast is up - download it here or listen at the site or on WFYI HD2, Thursdays at 4pm and 10pm.
The PocketGK amp simulator for the iPhone/iPad does a few things the Amplitube simulator I purchased earlier does as well, then has some much better and somewhat lacking features. First, both programs take input from the iRig and deliver the signal through the apps into headphones without issue. Both provide the opportunity to mix and match cabinets - the Amplitube also simulates a mic choice, but it only has one bass amp and one cabinet. PocketGK offers a more fully-featured bass amp (contour, boost, better EQ, etc.) and two cabinets. It does not offer, however, recording and additional effects.
What wins me over in this contest is the better sound for the PocketGK (which models the Gallien-Krueger amp line faithfully, while Amplitube seems to loosely attempt an Ampeg sound) and the ability to play directly over songs from your iPod. It's really only helpful for practice sessions (or bass kareoke - a woefully underserved market, if you ask me), but I've spent far more time at this point with PocketGK just playing. The more customizable amp and better overall tone helps, too - I've never given GK amps a shot, but this kinda lures me in.
Some Quick Thoughts on Garageband for iPad
Folks used to working with the Mac version of Garageband will probably notice a little loss in functionality - only 8 tracks, and the audio recording process isn't entirely intuitive. Monitoring of the audio signal being recorded isn't on by default, and you have to record in the instrument section and not the track view. Editing in the track view is relatively simple, though, and moving and deleting audio is quite easy. The recording process also involves recording in sections (A, B - think pop song structure) of variable number of measures (4, 8, 16, etc.). Record your A section with all instruments, then move on. Good for songwriting, but not necessarily for free-form idea recording.
The virtual instruments are unusually effective here - the virtual guitars and basses have virtual frets you can touch to get the note. The virtual basses also allow for sliding notes along strings and bending strings. The virtual guitars allow the same on a regular fretboard, and you can also set up sections of chords where you can strum or "fingerpick" without having to worry if your left hand has fretted the chords correctly.
The drums are interesting - you have your choice of a drumkit you can tap beats out on, or you can use "smart drums." These drums function on an X-Y axis of simple to complex and soft to loud. Pick your drumset, then drop the bass drum on the X-Y axis. The application "plays" the drum in accordance to where you dropped it. This means you can have a steady, loud bass drum with a more complex snare and hi-hat above that. Move them around to tweak the beat to your liking and add more percussion instruments, if you wish. It's not a standard drum grid, but it might act well if you want a thought-started for songs.
At a price of $5 (plus whatever hardware you buy for getting audio into your iPad), there's a ton of functionality for both sketching and field recording for the price. It doesn't replace the software I use for recording or podcasting, but it does make for easy recording of ideas and allows me to get decent audio away from my home rig.
EDIT: How could I forget the most egregious omission?! THERE'S NO VIRTUAL BASS AMP?! Amplitube takes care of live performance needs, but it doesn't feed audio in GB. Please, Apple - could this be an upgrade for the next version?
Music-making on the iPad
A fellow bassist recently told me he's getting back into recording because it's so easy on the iPad (he's using the Amplitube app I reviewed earlier), which makes a ton of sense to those raised on dealing with the infamous 4-track cassette recorder. This device performs the same function as the 4-track with none of the same quality issues or temperamental nature. And those wanting to expand on what's possible get apps as well (like the Moog Filtatron, Bloom, or any number of synths). Add in the announcement of Garageband for iPad 2 (and just that device, more than likely) and FruityLoops for iOS (coming soon), and the iPad becomes a viable musical recording device (just ask the Gorillaz).
What I want to see next is giving these devices a coherent workflow. I'm not demanding the use of plug-ins or anything (maybe my use of Record and Reason has beat that notion out of me), but the ability to route audio cleanly between apps without having to import and export would be handy. Not sure if that violates API rules or if it's even possible, but it's a direction I'd like to see explored.
And, of course, I want a good music notation system and ever-expanding live music apps, but I've written about that before. Some dreams never die.
New IMN Podcast and the iRig Review
The new IMN podcast is up - download it or listen at the site or on WFYI HD2, Thursdays at 4pm and 10pm.
Bassists are used to relying on big boxes to get their sound - at least when it comes to amplifiers. Therefore, I wasn't really expecting much when I purchased the iRig. It was just a lark to test out what's available in the software and see what I could do. At the very least, I'd have something to connect the bass to my iPhone or iPad for the tuner apps I have.
The iRig connection wasn't hard at all - plug in the bass and the headphones to the iRig, plug the iRig into the iDevice, and you're good to go. The tuner programs work just fine with it, so mission accomplished there. I went ahead and purchased the full version of Amplitube, even though it only has the one bass amp model. Which, by the way, works perfectly adequately for an Ampeg-style emulator. The effects interact with the bass acceptably as well, although the overdrive and distortion effects sometimes caused large amounts of feedback. A few quick volume adjustments in the setup section of the program as well as the iPad solved the problem. It probably won't replace the Line 6 software integration I use with Record, and I'll stick with my DI boxes and amps for recording and live performances. But for sketchpad playing or silent practice, it's a tool well worth the purchase. And you will have to purchase - the free version doesn't include the bass amp, and you'd have to purchase the software separately for each device if you own both an iPhone and an iPad.
The real revelation was using the bass with the Moog Filterator. You can mix in a sample and a VCO signal from the Moog synth emulator with a line signal, and the available effects make radical signal manipulation quite easy. I went from near-NIN tones to ambient explorations with a few tweaks, and Moog's sound holds up to the name's reputation. This is where the iRig and software shines - making new things that wouldn't ordinarily be possible using physical tools. The X-Y pads Moog makes available lets you affect sound and effects with a quick touch, and you'd need a ton of programmable effects to accomplish this otherwise. Not bad for a $40 equipment purchase and a $5 app.
The Bass Geek’s Twitter
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