If you're lucky, your portable audio player has some lousy recording capabilities. Or it may have none at all. So many people resort to MiniDisc recorders, which are decent, but employ lossy compression — and do you really want to be swapping tapes and manually copying to your computer in the year 2005? Edirol's R1 […]

Okay, this is just getting ridiculous. Avid announced today that it will acquire Pinnacle, one of Avid's few remaining competitors in media production technology. At the ultra-high-end broadcast level, Avid already nearly owns the market, and Pinnacle will complete that integration. Meanwhile, you can expect Avid to make a big play for the consumer market […]

Manhattan apartments may not have enough room to cook anything more sophisticated than instant mac & cheese, but who says you can't roll your bed into a closet and make a hit album? Even the New York Times is noticing the home studio trend in a story Sunday. (Check that link quick; after a few […]

PodBrix, who brought us the "Lego" Steve Jobs keynote playset, now have the world's geekiest way of toting around your iPod Shuffle. The Brixwear 1000, due to go on sale at 9 PM Eastern time Monday 3/21, uses a magnetic clasp to keep your Shuffle on your chest and not on the sidewalk. US$28.99, and […]

Guitarists have had the right idea for a long time: when you run out of hands, get your feet in on the action. Now with us keyboardists busying ourselves with complex synth patches and triggering grooves from Ableton Live in live performance, the time is right for mainstreaming the stompbox-style foot controller. Strangely, finding an […]

I expect that I'll write this and someone will say, "Why, no, that's simply copied from Joe's Big EQ, an effect written 5 years ago." but for my money, Digidesign's new EQ III looks stunningly like the MasterWorks EQ in MOTU Digital Performer 4.5. (Read my review of DP in Keyboard) Let's back up for […]

Ektopia points to an obsessive Japanese database of product designs, with extensive audio gear. Plenty to satisfy your fetish for metal and knobs, but most intriguing is the Sony Flamingo portable record player. No, not a CD walkman — think the turntable equivalent. Bet that worked really well. eBay?

Finally — a boatload of free stuff arrives on a Friday so I can alliterate my roundup. Simple pleasures. First, the Windows edition: Free mono synth with lots of routing: Club CC4 has released their Ridiculously Red monophonic hybrid instrument, which has a Ridiculously Butt-ugly interface but "experimental semi-modular routing" and lots of routing and […]

Apple Loops are brilliant. Sure, you can use them in generic ways, pasting together music, but if you want them to act as raw materials for remixing or mind-bendiningly experimental music (just add effects), you can do that, too. And Mac sites keep releasing great loops for free: Free tune-up mini features sounds like "Space […]

Tired of the lead vocalist in your hardcore thrash death metal band? Why not replace him or her with a parrot? Yes, it's Hatebeak, the band with a parrot (literally) singing — make that "savaging you with feathers of razored steel." (I've heard a few folk singer-songwriters who also fit that description, but I digress.) […]