Category Archives: Music Software

HOWTO: Upgrade XP (32 bit) with the downloadable Windows 7

I had a real adventure last night, installing Windows 7. I ran into a problem so infuriating, and yet so completely boneheaded and ridiculous that I had to laugh. It’s described here. In essence, if you bought the EDU $29.95 … Continue reading

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More from The Finger: And Now For Something Completely Awful

The way that Tim Exile’s “The Finger” is capable of completely destroying an audio source is intoxicating. I keep trying to use it ‘reasonably’ and end up doing things like this. Believe it or not, this started out as synth … Continue reading

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Apple’s Blind Idiot Genius

So I downloaded the new ITunes last night, and tried out the Genius playlist feature. It is kind of amusing. First thing — it doesn’t know obviously, but it does a pretty good job if a track is in it’s … Continue reading

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Pace Copy Protection — Still Bullshit After All These Years

I built a new computer.  I installed Windows XP SP3 on the new computer.  I install my working set of music software plus a few other essentials.  Everything works perfectly. Except for 2 packages of VST plugins.  Every VST host … Continue reading

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Bargain Guitar-to-MIDI converter at Audiomidi…

The Sonuus G2M Converter is, at $99 almost cheap enough for me to impulse-buy. But I’ve played around with guitar-to-midi converters from time to time and I’ve always been disappointed, and besides, after paying bills I’m already broke for July. … Continue reading

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How little does Google Chrome OS means to Musicians & Producers?

The big buzz (and trending Twitter topic of the day) is Google OS. This will apparently comprise a minimal Linux Kernel, a graphical rendering engine, and Google Chrome. It will be perfect for what people spend 95% of their computing … Continue reading

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NI Komplete blown out at $399?!? What does it mean?

So this NI Komplete Special is definitely the talk of the music production blogs today. It’s a great deal IMHO, but it raises some questions… Q1: It kind of makes everyone who dropped $1200 on Komplete recently feel like a … Continue reading

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Who wants to build Paul Stretch for Power PC????

My posts about Paul Stretch may be the most widely-read thing I’ve done on this blog. I know that my build for Intel/OSX has been downloaded many times. Unfortunately I don’t have access to a PPC Mac and I can’t … Continue reading

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Now What Indeed? #ableton

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#Ableton Q: Start a track before 1.1.0?

Notice my clever hash mark — because my posts get forwarded to Twitter … I’m becoming a blog/facebook/twitter whore.  My friend Dylan wrote “Here’s a problem I’ve been trying to figure out for a while now: say you want to drop … Continue reading

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Ableton Live How To: Re-clocking tracks

Someone asked me this on twitter: “Is it possible to fix a tracks tempo in Ableton and then export it for use elsewhere?” The answer won’t fit in a tweet, so I’m posting here. It’s not a big deal but … Continue reading

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More samples — the hallway session samples

http://www.cornwarning.com/xfer/hallway-samples.zip Objects involved: Screwdriver, Steel Thermos, Spraypaint Can, Rubbermaid Shelves, Sheetrock Wall, Stair Rail, Wooden Legs That Used To Hold Up Kitchen Island, Sniffing. Recorded with a Pacific Pro Audio Large Diaphragm Condenser Microphone, Presonus Tube Pre, RME Hammerfall DSP … Continue reading

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Thing I’ll Never Do #392387 — Pay $495 To Make Music with Lisp

http://www.symboliccomposer.com/page_main.shtml Symbolic Composer has a certain appeal I guess, if Max/MSP seems too easy or inflexible. I’d even consider messing with it — if it was free! But $495??? Keerazy. Remember to make ANY SOUND with SCom, you write a … Continue reading

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WTF — Ableton Live Suite 8.03 == 1.3 Gigabyte download???

I guess I know why it’s so huge, but jeez, maybe they could split the application file from the included content? That is a 45 minute dowload at 400Kb/second! Imagine someone on dialup trying to get it!

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DJing in Live — Limiters are not the answer!

This is a common ‘helpful tip’ about playing live or DJ’ing with Ableton Live — ‘put a limiter on the main output bus.’ After recording a set last night (which you’ll hear about when I get approval from one artist … Continue reading

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Akai APC40 First Impressions

My APC40 came yesterday, and I spent a few hours fiddling with it last night… The build quality is impressive. Almost absurdly so — the knobs are big and solid, the faders are smooth. The hard rubber end cheeks are … Continue reading

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AudioMidi has APC40 in stock, shipping today

AudioMidi is one of those online retailers, like NewEgg that once you find it, becomes your vendor of first resort. I can’t recommend them highly enough — competetive prices, prompt shipping, and first rate customer service. I ordered my Akai … Continue reading

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Ableton Live 8 Extracts Grooves from Audio

Groove Quantization was one of the ‘big deal’ features added in Ableton Live, and I suppose if I’d read all the marketing shiznit more carefully I would have figured it out before now, but as usual I only learn by … Continue reading

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Dave Smith Mopho goes Keerazy with Random Patch Generator

This is Dave Smith Instruments’ Mopho playing some patches generated randomly by the Mopho Pro Editor. The Mopho Pro Editor is like any other editor for external MIDI instruments: It’s kind of buggy and ill-documented, and half the time something … Continue reading

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Perspective on Cycling74 dropping Pluggo support…

This started out as a comment on This CDM post but grew to the point I moved it here. Peter Kirn took this announcement as an opportunity to discuss free/open alternatives, which is great, but personally, I’ve really come to … Continue reading

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