Vista Journal: Recommendation – Don’t Upgrade Yet

At the risk of stating the obvious: now is not yet a good time to upgrade to Vista. That much is generally expected with a new operating system. What’s unexpected is that it’s some of the biggest partners who aren’t ready. Microsoft’s own developer tools for Vista are still in beta. Basic hardware drivers are […]

Portable, Linux-Based Trinity Recorder Development Continues; New Specs

Last summer, we first saw word of a high-end, Linux-powered portable recording device called the Trinity. In case you wondered if that hardware was vaporware, Trinity Audio Devices’ Ronald Stewart writes to assure it’s not. Trinity has also given CDM an exclusive image of the updated production PCB, shown below. The specs have gotten some […]

Dave Smith BoomChik Official Details: Drum Machine, not MPC

Dave Smith Instruments originally planned only to tease their upcoming drum machine exclusively in a banner at the NAMM show: no word outside the insider trade show. Not in the Internet age: word of a new product from synth legend Dave Smith and drum machine/MPC legend quickly had blogs and forums abuzz. Dave Smith himself […]

HD4NDs Weighs in on the Canon HV20: Cheap, Compact 1080p, Sub-$1000?

HD4Indies’ Mike points out the Canon HV20 “Compact HDV Camcorder”. It’s has an HD (1920x1080p) CMOS sensor, records HDV to DV tapes, and sports an HDMI out for uncompressed capture. Mike likes the look of it for a “learner camera”, to me this looks like an ideal unit for tethered shooting of visuals, studio shoots […]

O’Reilly Reviews Zoom H4 in Hawaii: Good, with Quirks

We’ve been watching Zoom’s upcoming, unannounced $199 H2 recorder, seen at NAMM. The H2 has the advantage of price and flexible mic patterns for its built-in mic. But its shipping, larger sibling, the $299 H4, may be a better choice, depending on your needs. The H4 has basic 4-track operation, built-in effects, X/Y-pattern mics, and […]

Pricey Computers and Cheap Glitch-Making Thrills

Gadget sites usually stay away from pro audio, but a no-compromise, three-display, $11,000+ Core 2 Extreme BTO PC from Altium can apparently get even Engadget’s blood pumping. Maybe they need a bigger machine to edit podcasts? Since we prefer cheap thrills here, look instead to Dan Nigrin’s just-released Major Malfunction plug-in for Ableton Live. (Mac/Universal, […]

DVGuru is Gone, But Their Content Lives On

DVGuru’s Randall has announced that today is their final day of operation. They will be sorely missed. A quick glance at my Bloglines subscription tells me that 340 people are going to have a little hole in their feed tomorrow. Their content has been a great mix of news, howtos and interviews. Fortunately it’s all […]

Great Book Endorsement

There are some strange sites out there. This one, found via Google Alerts, apparently is a Russian site designed to lure readers looking for illegal downloadable PDFs of books. As it happens, the page for my book seems to be stolen from the Amazon.com description; there’s no pirated copy of my book available. (Too bad; […]

Pirates and Knitting

High-end audio products maker SSL doesn’t just have their eccentric product manager do sales pitches in pirate talk, says Music thing. The whole company has Pirate Friday and uses “Arrgh-Harrgh” as their sales shout. Cool, but I want to find an audio company that pretends to be deadly ninjas. In meatspace, tonight I’ll be in […]