So, I guess there was some sort of Saxophone Smackdown this weekend. Anyone, someone attended it and came away with some interesting information from Jerome Selmer.
Check it out. Interesting stuff.
Category: Articles
Finale Notepad 2012…..FREE……AGAIN
File this under news no one really cares about….
One of the biggest bone head decisions was MakeMusic charging for NotePad, which had been free up until version 2009 (I think). Well, duh…..no one bought it. And the exposure they got for providing a fairly adequate notation program for free evaporated.
Now, at NAMM, they announced that 2012 version of Finale Notepad is going to be free. Now….if they would only maybe follow through? Hello Minnesota….you there?
I dunno exactly what the point is in announcing something then waiting like a month to deliver it. How hard is it to strip out the DRM in it? Seriously, how MakeMusic stays in business is anyone’s guess.
UPDATE 2/15/2012 Seems they, over a month after they announced it, have released Notepad.
John Williams is 80 Today
One of the best, if not THE BEST, movie composers, John Williams, turns 80 today. Though the article suggests 5 scores of his to listen to, there are TONS more. Like Indiana Jones music, ET, Superman (original), Catch Me If You Can (which has a great saxophone part done by Dan Higgins), Saving Private Ryan….just to name a FEW.
Wiki him. He has pretty much shaped music in movies since the 70s.
Sheet Of The Week – Hey There Delilah (Plain White T’s)
The song that put the Plain White T’s on the map.
Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T's for Eb Instruments (111.6 KiB, 231 hits)
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Hey There Delilah by the Plain White T's for Bb Instruments (106.6 KiB, 95 hits)
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Manhattan School Of Music Doesn’t Archive McCaslin
So it seems Donny McCaslin had a broadcasted Masterclass yesterday. But the geniuses at the Manhattan School of music didn’t archive it. Yes, read that again. But the geniuses at the Manhattan School of music didn’t archive it.
Why? This makes absolutely NO SENSE. First, it has value. They invited him to speak, so, he music have some gravitas right? And they broadcasted him right? So…..why not make an archive copy? What if, say, it was such a great masterclass that they want next year’s students to watch it? Nope, can’t do it. It’s gone. What if Donny dies suddenly after watching the latest Twilight Movie at home (his insides literally tore themselves apart sitting through that drivel) and the world is robbed of his talent, and perhaps one of the most interesting discussions he gave was the week before….but they didn’t archive it.
And we wonder why education costs so much.
Now, a smart university would maybe have archived the discussion. Maybe put it on iTunes like say, oh I dunno, Stanford does? Or a TON of other Universities? Or maybe even put it on YouTube and get some revenue from the ads? No no, that would be a good decision. Let’s just broadcast it and throw it away. Maybe NASA should have done that when we went to the moon. Or maybe Stanford should have never archived and made available for free on iTunes. I mean, it’s not like it isn’t probably the most amazing speech given in a long long time, and insight into a genius. No no, no way that Donny could ever do that right? He doesn’t need to be archived.
Stupid Manhattan School of Music. Really stupid. Get into the 21st Century. Archive everything. It doesn’t cost you a dime to upload to YouTube and you could make some money off it.
Make Your Own Repair Kit
There are a couple of places online that will sell you a more complete repair kit, but what about if you just want stuff to repair stuff on the fly? Like an emergency kit?
Mr. Pimentel put together a good toolkit for fixing stuff on the go. As in NOT replacing pads or springs.
I think it’s really valuable to be able to do a few small repairs on woodwind instruments. As a doubler, I’ve found it to be a financial necessity—I can’t afford to run to the repair shop every time some little thing needs tweaking on one of my instruments—and it’s a great way to get to know your instruments better. (I do still make sure my instruments visit a real professional on a regular basis.)
Good tool list generally, though I’d put some strips of cardboard (to make wedges and what not) in there for propping open keys or mechs to allow easier fixing.
NAMM 2012
There are a lot of interesting things announced at the NAMM show. Here are some of the ones I thought were interesting.
Behringer Pad-housing USB mixers
iPad plus mixer? YES!
Premium 32-Input 4/2-Bus Mixer with iPAD Docking Station, XENYX Mic Preamps & Compressors, KLARK TEKNIK Multi-FX Processor, Wireless Option and USB/Audio Interface
Technological Innovation, Seamless Integration The Apple iPad has opened a Pandora’s Box of opportunity for musicians. The iX docking station will send signal both two and from your iPad with a wide range of routing options. Tap into the hundreds of music apps including our own FX Processor that lets you dig deeper into your mic with top-notch EQs, studio-quality compressors and reverbs, plus a spectrum analyzer. With a wide variety to choose from in the app store, you can record to Garage Band, tune and monitor your rig through the room analyzer mic input, and more. The opportunities are endless.
Sounds cool to me.
Wait, another iPad mixer thing……but from Mackie?
With 16 boutique-quality Onyx mic preamps and the performance of 24bit Cirrus Logic® AD/DA converters, you have unparalleled sound quality. Seamless wired to wireless iPad control means you can mix from anywhere in the venue. This gives you the mobile freedom to control not only the mix, but powerful plug-ins like EQ, dynamics, effects and more. The sleek DL1608 even supports up to 10 iPad devices. Forget bulky consoles and racks of gear. The power is at your fingertips.
Wait, wasn’t the iPad just a fad? Hmm…..
Thunderbolt accessories??
Apollo offers compatibility with Intel’s new Thunderbolt technology, as found on the newest iMacs, MacBook Pros, MacBook Airs, and next-generation PCs.
Available via a user-installable dual-port Thunderbolt I/O Option Card (sold separately), Thunderbolt provides lower latency, reduced audio buffer size, improved performance, and greater UAD plug-in instances versus FireWire. And because Thunderbolt offers many times the bandwith of FireWire, it allows music producers to connect numerous devices in series with the Apollo interface — including hard drives, processors, and additional computer monitors — all with fast, flawless performance.
Symphony 64 | Thunderbolt
64 Channel Thunderbolt connection for Apogee Symphony I/O
Connect Symphony I/O to any Thunderbolt™ equipped Mac for true Thunderbolt compatibility and performance. Symphony | 64 Thunderbolt will also connect X-Symphony equipped AD-16X, DA-16X, Rosetta 800 and Rosetta 200 converters to Thunderbolt Macs.
Top 10 Albums Of 2011
There are a LOT of sites that are posting top 10 albums of the year. I thought I’d post my favorites. In no particular order. There were a lot I left out….:-(
Gordon Goodwin’s Big Phat Band – That’s How We Roll iTunes,amazon. Duh….obviously.
Christian McBride Big Band – The Good Feeling iTunes,amazon. Love that there are more Big Bands starting up and sounding amazing other than the already amazing Gordon Goodwin Big Phat Band.
Alma Adentro: The Puerto Rican Songbook iTunes,amazon. Latin jazz music is awesome, and Miguel is the master of it. Great album.
John Escreet – The Age We Live In iTunes,Amazon Great album with Dave Binney.
Captain Black Big Band – Captain Black Big Band iTunes Another Big Band? Yep.
Tony Bennett – The Best Of The Improv Recordings iTunes,Amazon Haven’t really been a fan of Tony’s. I generally thought his singing was too commercial, to….scripted? Not these recordings. More like Sinatra….which is good.
Omer Avital Quintet – Live at Smalls iTunes,Amazon Great, tight group.
Scott Hamilton & Dusko Goykovich – Tight But Loose iTunes,Amazon I never tire of listening to Scott Hamilton. He is in the top of my favorite tenor players.
Richard Cheese – Live At The Royal Wedding iTunes,Amazon Need a Weird Al jazz person? Except not PC? Then Richard Cheese is your man.
Ken Peplowski – In Search of… iTunes,Amazon Clarinet and saxophone played awesome? Yup. Peplowski is great.
Occupy……Jazz?
Noted trumpeter Nicholas Payton wrote a great blog entry title “On Why Jazz Isn’t Cool Anymore…” which is brilliant. Bravo sir. It has sparked debate on Reddit, NPR, MetaFilter and the circle jerk…I mean SaxOnTheWeb site. Probably the best response has been by trumpeter Ian Carey titled How Not To Become A Bitter White Jazz Musician.
While a lot of these other sites have gone off on positive or negative tangents about this, the essence of what Mr. Payton says is true. Jazz has been usurped after its death in 1959. The music has moved on. It has evolved. Grouping the “Jazz” today would sort of be like grouping Mozart and John Adams together under the label of Classical Music. Wait…..they do still do that. What the…..
I personally don’t care what it is called. In fact, I HATE labeling music that is in my iTunes library. I have soundtracks, broadway musicals, jazz, smooth jazz, jazz and funk, funk, rock, classic rock, classical, choir music, NuJazz, Ska, New Orleans, Big Band…….I could be here all day listing them. Why can’t we just call it music and not worry about if it is Jazz, Rock, Classical or whatever?
Yeah……I don’t think it’s ever going to happen either……..we are screwed.
EWI Site Of Note
Since the disappearance of EWI-EVI.com and iBrecker still not really back (is it ever going to be?), there is sort of a void of EWI sites.
Gentlemen and Ladies, may I point you to EWI Reason Sounds. It deals mainly with EWI and Reason, but there is a lot of good info that you could use for whatever DAW you use. Though Reason is a great program.
The Pressing Of Vinyl
The Telegraph has an interesting article and video about the resurgence of vinyl records. I know a few people with really high end record players who swear the vinyl sounds way better than CD. And it does. CD technology hasn’t changed since the 80s. We are still pressing out 44.1Khz 16bit music for the majority of the stuff pressed. On iTunes, I think they upped the bit rate to 256 AAC, but the music is generally mixed down to 44.1 and 16 bits still. There are exceptions here and there. Most computer speakers and the headphones that come with an iPod/iPhone won’t do that stuff justice anyhow.
Five years ago, vinyl records were facing extinction but the past few years have seen a remarkable change in fortunes. In 2011 alone, sales have risen a further 40 per cent, to a quarter of a million units. Radiohead’s The King of Limbs, the year’s biggest seller on vinyl, shifted 20,000 copies. That was enough to persuade the band’s label, XL Recordings – also home to the mega-selling Adele – to announce the launch of a new vinyl webstore in the United States this month.
Two iPad Goodies
There are a lot of accessories out for the iPad that a musician can use. Two that have caught my attention. The Digitech iPB-10 which slashgear had a review of
This week the the DigiTech iPB-10 has been revealed, a digital pedalboard which will allow your iPad to play host to several music pedals at once. Inside with your iPad running the official app for this device as its plugged into the device itself, you’ll have access to 87 different pedals, 54 amplifiers, and 26 cabinets, all at a flick of your finger. What more could you want? And don’t say a DJ station, because that’s separate, and we’ve done that before as well — read on for guitar iPad action!
This thing sounds awesome if you are a guitar player or a EWI effects addict (raises hand meekly). Except…..$499. Though it sounds like it works without the iPad in it, so, you could have presets all ready and not have to put the iPad in there. This thing also has it’s own DSP chips so the quality of sound and perhaps latency might be better. But still…..maybe $299 would be a better price point?
The second piece of gear is the Alesis iO Dock. This thing is $199, and has phantom powered mic inputs, quarter inch outputs, pedal input, headphones. And it works with Garageband, so you can record or whatever you want on it. This sounds amazing and is on my Christmas list this year. XLR inputs means you should be able to hook your sax up and start using effects with this baby.
By the way, Garageband is a MUST HAVE iPhone/iPad/iTouch app. It works on all three now. $5.
Uniquesquared.com had an excellent review of it using Garageband.
A Sister’s Eulogy for Steve Jobs
In case you haven’t noticed, I am insanely interested in Steve Jobs. This man was amazing. I really……really wanted to bump into him someday. Just to say hi. And thanks for the fish…..I mean, cool stuff. Life changing stuff. World changing stuff. iPod. Mac. iPad. iPhone. Computers that run without the need for virus protection. I could go on all day.
Steve’s sister had some amazing words and stories about him….
A Sister’s Eulogy of Steve Jobs:
Even as a feminist, my whole life I’d been waiting for a man to love, who could love me. For decades, I’d thought that man would be my father. When I was 25, I met that man and he was my brother.
By then, I lived in New York, where I was trying to write my first novel. I had a job at a small magazine in an office the size of a closet, with three other aspiring writers. When one day a lawyer called me — me, the middle-class girl from California who hassled the boss to buy us health insurance — and said his client was rich and famous and was my long-lost brother, the young editors went wild. This was 1985 and we worked at a cutting-edge literary magazine, but I’d fallen into the plot of a Dickens novel and really, we all loved those best. The lawyer refused to tell me my brother’s name and my colleagues started a betting pool. The leading candidate: John Travolta. I secretly hoped for a literary descendant of Henry James — someone more talented than I, someone brilliant without even trying.
Good stuff.
The Convergence of Owning Music and Renting Music
Digital Audio insider had an article up about Renting and Owning music. I wrote some comments on the site that basically say no, I don’t see it happening. People have been saying this since Napster was out. Heck, Rhapsody has been offering this for a long time…..streaming music. Pandora has been doing it for a few years. And now everyone is excited that Spotify (what a stupid name….as stupid as FaceBook…ugh) is in the US. Renting your music just has never taken off.
I certainly don’t see it happening now that AT&T, and Verizon have capped data usage on mobile devices. Oh, but the proposed merger of AT&T and T-Mobile will fix that right (Bullshit!). And they all now cap your internet usage at home (Time-Warner & U-Verse is capped at 250 gigs a month and so are others). So….that is another hurdle for streaming to contend with.
Basically, I like free things that let me FIND music I like. Like Pandora or a PodCast. I LOVE PodCasts. Single best way to find new albums or even hear great things for free.
Then I will buy that song for $0.99 and own it. No re-occuring monthly fee. It’s mine.
The Convergence of Owning Music and Renting Music:
image by TheTruthAbout via Flickr
Earlier in the week, Hypebot pointed to this eMarketer summary of two recent studies about consumer attitudes about owning music vs. renting it:
The first of the two studies was a survey conduced by Insight Research Group on behalf of eMusic that revealed the widely noted insight that 91% of those polled preferred to own music rather than subscribing to it.
There are real differences, both logistical and psychological, between owning and renting music. But I’ll bet that the preference for ownership will decrease as the listening experience for “owned” and “rented” music converges. If you’re using a website or app to listen to music on your computer or portable device, where the files are coming — your hard drive, your cloud drive, or the server of a music subscription service — doesn’t have much effect on your listening experience. And a year from now, even more people will be using Spotify, iTunes Match, Amazon’s Cloud Player, Google Music, and other services to listen to music. The more they do, the more willing they’ll be to forgo actual ownership.
(Via Digital Audio Insider)
Ten Years Ago Today: iPod
Apple’s iPod, a 6.5-ounce MP3 player the size of a deck of cards, is one of the most exciting products to come from Apple in years. Powered by FireWire, the iPod can hold as much as 5GB of data, providing a compelling balance of size and capacity. However, this combination of features comes at a relatively high price: $399.
(Via Daring Fireball)
Hard to believe, but 10 years ago today was when Apple unveiled the first iPod. It was an unusual move. Apple was known for Computers and operating systems, not music a consumer good like an MP3 player. Boy, did Apple come in and change everything. Perhaps some of you don’t remember the players before the iPod. It was by far the smallest one as I remember, but it was the one that nailed how to do things. It was fast with it’s firewire interface (USB 1 was still the de-facto standard in the PC industry), and simple with iTunes 2 as the computer to device interface.
I remember being sort of “why the heck would you want that” about it. I mean, it was kind of expensive, and I didn’t see the point of it when I could burn a CD or CD-RW of songs to listen to. Yeah…..and then I got the second generation iPod…..and that opinion of mine changed and I immediately ripped all my CDs…..which took MONTHS to do, into AAC 160 format. And I have never…..ever…..looked back.