Korg President Michael Kovins Has Passed Away

We’ve just received sad news via Korg USA: Korg USA mourns the passing of company President Michael Kovins. Michael, who worked with the company for 26 years, served as Korg USA President for the last 14 of those years. A respected music industry figure, Michael was diagnosed with Leukemia nine years ago and fought the […]

Drums in Glorious Mono: Free Reason ReFill for Reason Drum Kit Owners

Ah, sweet, sweet mono: because two speakers is really too many. Part of the idea behind the Reason Drum Kits 2 was providing alternative sampled drums with different miking configurations for different sounds, so in that spirit, the Props are giving away a mono set to registered RDK users. (Hey, why not give it to […]

Composer’s Studio Goes Digital: Tech Toys and Inspiration

Now that the rest of our studio has gone digital, the approach to producing score for acoustic instruments has changed, too. Here’s a look at some of my favorite toys and tools for keeping music flowing. You’d have to be a true Luddite to argue that word processors are bad for writing. Blogs, perhaps, sometimes […]

How To: Solve Garbled Audio on Windows by Adjusting Driver Settings

Ever suffered garbled audio on Windows and couldn’t figure out why? Driver settings were likely to blame. Audio on the Mac is now essentially plug and play; I don’t remember the last time I even touched an audio driver setting other than to switch from one device to another (switching between devices also works better […]

A New Way of Learning Orchestration: Online, Free, Interactive

Talk about digital technology and music, and people are often skeptical: doesn’t technology get in the way of making music? But technology and music have always been interwined, and even for advanced composers, better understanding the technology of how acoustic instruments work is fundamental to realizing musical ideas. Unfortunately, orchestration books, despite their best intentions, […]

Free Listening: Making Instruments Panel, Kelp Horns, Circuit-Bent Teletubbies from Maker Faire (Updated)

Marc Weidenbaum of Disquiet writes to let us know that free audio is available of the Maker Faire panel on creating instruments: Instrument Panel MP3 and Commentary [Disquiet] Archive.org details and MP3 download Other featured speakers: Krys Bobrowski, Tom Koch (aka univac) and Chachi Jones, and they brought some really cool stuff: Bobrowski brought along […]

Macworld Verdict: MacBook Pro Blazes Through Logic

It’s the moment of truth: we finally get to see how Intel Macs compare to G5 and G4 Macs when running serious audio software. I got my first opportunity to work with James Galbraith and Macworld Labs to put Apple’s Intel-based Macs through their paces running the new Intel-native Logic Pro 7.2. The results were […]

New Massenburg High-Res EQ for Pro Tools

I’m not always jealous of the Pro Tools platform, but here’s a good reason to be: the Massenburg DesignWorks Hi-Res Parametric EQ, version 2.0 of which started shipping this week. George Massenburg needs no introduction: he’s credited as the creator of the parametric EQ, and makes his own superb (hardware, not software) audio gear as […]

Sony’s Answer to Apple’s Soundtrack: Cinescore Eliminates Composers Entirely, Brings AI to Klezmer

Yes, I know, there are many video production houses working on weddings and corporate videos who aren’t likely to hire Howard Shore to compose the score. (Well, except for the odd Lord of the Rings geeks tying the knot.) So, it makes sense that we’d see yet another software product that promises to generate the […]

Contest: Mash-Up/Remix the Halo 2 Soundtrack

Here’s CDM’s resident game composer with the perfect opportunity for lovers of remixing and gaming. Why do I have a feeling that you’ll get disqualified if you mash Halo 2’s music with Animal Crossing or, for you long-time Mac/Bungie geeks out there, Marathon? (Maybe an odd quote from Myth . . . “Casualties.”) -PK Tired […]