Category — Production Tools

After months of waiting the Korg Nanoseries controllers have finally been released, and I can’t wait for mine to arrive.  Too bad I didn’t wait to order mine as I just found out they are now coming in black as well, which appears to make them look a tad less toy-ish…oh well.

Korg Nanoseries Controllers

Despite the seemingly endless supply of these custom sequencers recently, I’m still not quite bored of them.  This one is called the Monome, and features a grid of backlit keypads that light up when pressed.  It connects to your computer via USB, and comes in 3 models: 256-button ($1400), 128-button ($800), and 64-button ($450).

Monome via LikeCool

While this Retro USB Wireless Microphone is probably not a good option for any serious vocal recording, at a mere $29 it looks like a solid option for DJ’s who need to record drops for mixtapes, I mean its not like it can sound any worse than 90% of the mixtape drops out there. It has a range of 3 meters, support for Windows XP, Vitsa, Mac OSX, and would certainly add a bit of snazz to your home studio.

USB Retro Wireless Microphone via CrateKings

While some artists prefer recording their music in dimly lit, intimate studios where they are free to explore their creative boundaries without distractions, I prefer being able to see what the hell I’m doing when working the boards.  So if the ceiling lights in your studio just aren’t cutting it, and you are looking for some lamps that will fit in nicely with the rest of your recording studio, then look no further than the Lightspeaker Lamp.

It may look like a speaker, but in actuality it’s a lamp that uses reflected light from the light bulb in the speaker cone to shine light back into the white speaker box.  The illusion is made even greater through a volume control knob that acts as a light dimmer.

The Lightspeaker Lamp will be available in Fall 2008, and is currently available as a special order only through the DeeplyMadLiving online store.

via Gear Crave

If you use Reason 4 for your music production, then head over to the Propellerhead website as you can download a free ReFill that was especially made to honor the legacy of Robert Moog. The ReFill giveaway was an idea proposed by Propellerhead in an effort to assist the Bob Moog Foundation, in addition to Propellerhead donating money themselves.

There are 20 patches in total, all of which were created by three leading synthesists who were asked to create a series of Thor patches inspired by Moogs innovations.

Free Moog Foundation ReFill Download

Propellerhead + Moog Foundation

Making remixes, mashups, or original music has gotten significantly easier in the last several years, but there’s still a lot of important factors one needs to know about that are crucial to making something that actually sounds good.   The first of which is learning how to properly EQ, a skill that gets passed over surprisingly much.  The reason I bring it up is because I found a nice graphical guide to how frequency works, and how you can tweak certain frequencies to boost or eliminate specific sounds.

Check out the Guide To Frequency Here.

The bald guy at 1:40 kills it.

I frequently come across videos on YouTube that contain snippets of audio I really want in mp3 form, usually for sampling or for throwing on at the end of a set for comic purposes.

While capturing audio from videos is nothing new, the website VidToMP3 just made it a bit easier. All you do is paste in the URL for the video, wait for the conversion (takes less than 1 minute), and download the mp3. Sweet!!

Here’s the first thing I grabbed.

A typical piano has 12 keys per octave. This “Tonal Plexus” microtonal MIDI keyboard however has 211 keys per octave, and each key can be custom tuned! Aside from the fact that it looks like its made up of Lego pieces, it seems like a pretty cool idea.

for more info click here

Looks like portable music production will soon get a bit more portable. Digimix is a new audio mixing application from Hobnox that runs completely within your web-browser! While it is still in development, once finished it should be a great resource for traveling producers and remixers.

Try the demo version out here.

via Synthtopia