Numark introduced its new $59.95 Laptop Stand at NAMM.
Key Features:
* Solid, easy-to-assemble laptop stand for DJs
* Secure construction, yet portable, and collapsible with low-weight design
* Fast to assemble or disassemble
* Comes with a zippered, protective case for convenience in transport
Teenage Engineering was demoing their OP-1 Synthesizer, which is very impressive and powerful – but expensive at the expected $700 retail price. They expect the release date to be about a year off, and they are working on finishing the software and looking for ways to make the synth more efficiently.
Imposcar 2 Features:
* PWM on both oscillators.
* Aux Mod Section with comprehensive routing (destinations include: OSc2 pitch, PW1, PW2, PW1&2, Filter Separation, Filter Q, Osc Mix, Noise Mix).
* Additional LFO.
* Improved LFO sync options.
* New Modulation & Controller Routing options.
* Pink noise.
* Vastly Improved Arpeggiator.
* Chord Hold & Retrigger from a single key.
* Controller Section Featuring Channel & Poly Aftertouch.
* Mod Wheel Controls now switchable between Aftertouch, Expression and Mod Wheel.
* Pan Spread Modes (left to right, Random etc) and Spread Amount Control.
* Mono & Poly Unison Modes (up to 8 voice poly unison).
* Unison Voice Spread
* Portamento Spread on Unison glides.
* New Chorus Modes.
* Ring Modulation.
* External Audio Input with the new FX version.
* Release Velocity Response.
* Small, Medium & Large GUI sizes.
A leader of the legendary Chicago band The Smashing Pumpkins Billy Corgan and his new girlfriend Jessica Simpson have decided to record a song together. Generally saying, this union is quite cool, two very different musicians, people from two different worlds are actually not just trying to date, but also trying to write down some music. As the Rolling Stone magazine said, a couple had already went into a studio and began working with the new material. Particularly, this process is organised by Kerry Brown, a producer who had previously co-worked with The Smashing Pumpkins during the recording of their previous album “Teargarden By Kaleidyscope”. The release date of Corgan’s and Simpson’s joint work is not known yet. Also, nobody knows if they’re planning to record anything else after it. The Smashing Pumpkins leader did not make any comments on his work with Simpson, but she did write some nice things about this process on her Twitter micro-blog. Simpson said that she really enjoys working in his studio; she is surely in love with Corgan. A romance between Corgan and Simpson became known in December, 2009, but in the beginning they’ve tried to keep it secret. However, soon after this new pair had decided to make it publicly known.
Bassists from two quite famous American bands Blink-182 and Fall Out Boy, Mark Hoppus and Pete Wentz have participated in the recording of the soundtrack to Tim Burton’s “Alice in the Wonderland”, said Gigwise. Following the issue’s information, musicians have finished their work, which included only one song. While telling about it Pete Wentz had underlined that the sound of a song is not typical and it surely could not be heard on the Blink’s or Fall Out Boy’s record. Usually guys like them are quite good in producing and creating something absolutely different from what they do in their every day music career. Wentz also noted that his co-work with Hoppus was very productive and generally speaking enjoyable. “Mark understands songwriting on a completely different level. It’s awesome to have a chance to sit in a room with him and watch him work out a melody.” Besides Hoppus and Wentz the movie producers have used a lot of help from Avril Lavigne; her particular role in the recording is not very clear so far. The full soundtrack to “Alice in the Wonderland” is not available yet, so let’s just wait until March 2010 when this movie is going to be released.
British Office of Communications was recently terribly unsatisfied with the MTV. The problem is in fact belongs to Lady GaGa who was cursing during the “Isle of MTV” festival live performance, but the channel did not pay any serious attention to it. This performance took place during the last summer, and was shown by MTV on November 2, 2009. Therefore, MTV is now should either pay the fine or just be excused by the Ofcom. As The Guardian said, British media censor has received a complaint from one of the viewers who was extremely shaken by Lady’s behaviour. In order to be absolutely correct a singer used a word “moth…er” only once and did not say anything bad ever since. Why that one person got so angry is not strange, but it’s strange why Ofcom took it so seriously. After all it was just one person who has complained and now because of it the whole MTV should be answering silly questions. Some viewers are a little bit too nervous, so their opinion must not be taken into any serious consideration anyway. An official Ofcom’s letter has noted that MTV was showing it all during the day time, thus according to their opinion children could hear Lady GaGa’s cursing. Instead it was supposed to be aired during the evening time.
The Pythagorean Lambdoma Harmonic Keyboard, designed by mathemetician Barbara Hero, is an unusual MIDI controller that’s based on ancient concepts and fundamental harmonic relationships between notes.
The keyboard is based on the Lambdoma Matrix, a mathematical grid attributed to the philosopher Pythagoras. The Matrix plots whole-number ratios, with whole numbers along on side (1,2,3,4….) and their inverse fractions (1/1, 1/2, 1/3, 1/4….) along the other.
In the nearest time some very talented and music loving people are planning to make a movie about legendary Jimi Hendrix. Creators of the “Slide” are going to spend a lot of time on one of the strangest moments in musician’s life, so called “the lost weekend”. It’s particularly related to his mysterious disappearance in September 1969. Many believe that he was kidnapped by the criminals, but later various rumours began to speak about the fact that his manager could be related to this incident. Nevertheless, all the aspects are still not known very well and therefore movie makers will try to spare some light on it. “Hence, this mysterious story is not very well known yet, I will try to use literature tricks and some fiction based stories”, said Slide’s director R.H. Green. This guy is also a writer, thus surely he is capable of fantasizing and making something out of nothing. Definitely, this movie may create even more rumours, but as long as the movie will look great, Jimi Hendrix’s memory should be great too. The actual filming process is expected to start during the first months of this year; Angryfilms and Bellport Pictures will be built into the production process. Who is going to play Jimi’s role is not known so far, and for a fact not everyone is going to be able to do it - it’s just a hard role.
James Blunt’s debut album “Back to Bedlam”, which was released way back in 2005 has topped the best selling chart of the last decade, said BBC News relating it to the Official Chart Company. It was a slight surprise because there a so many other artists that seem to be way more popular, but such things happen and surely James Blunt deserves it. Right after “Back to Bedlam” was released it headed the national chart, and later received platinum status for ten times; European sales went as far as six million copies. All along 2005 British fans have purchased 2,5 million copies of his brilliant album and particularly this fact made him the number one - he turned to be a bestseller of the year. However, New Musical Express magazine has given this album the title of the “worst album” of 2005. Sometimes music critics just loose that necessary touch with the reality they live in. At the same time BBC News is not currently possessing the exact data on how many copies were sold till this day since the actual relaese date. The first five albums list with the highest selling record since 2000 looks like this: 1. James Blunt - “Back to Bedlam” (2005)
2. Dido - “No Angels” (2002)
3. Amy Winehouse - “Back to Black” (2006)
4. Leona Lewis - “Spirit” (2007)
5. David Gray - “White Ladder” (2000)
Legendary U2’s Bono had recently wrote in his traditional The New York Times article that it may be useful to use China’s experience on controlling the Internet traffic in order to get rid of the mp3 piracy. According to his opinion such measures should be soon promoted by the representatives of the film making industry because this problem will hit them in the nearest future. Their power and authority over the media may be very helpful in order to press it upon Internet providers. Well, it sounds as if nowadays Bono was trully loosing money over the piracy, and in the meantime he doesn’t really understand that these methods are simply not possible. To make his wish come true it will take away other very important and precious freedoms that Internet users have today. In other words, it shall require strict censorship over the traffic as a whole, and therefore his idea sounds a little bit scary. Surely, Bono did not say something absolutely strange; he added that music piracy is particularly standing on the way of young musicians who cannot make money by selling souvenirs or compiling stadium concerts. “The only thing protecting the movie and TV industries from the fate that has befallen music and indeed the newspaper business is the size of the files”, he noted. Faster the downloading process, more films will get stolen, and thus movie industry should step in and help out musicians who have experienced some degree of defeat during the last decade. Bono’s opinion is certainly right, but censorship over the Internet sounds slightly scary.