UYRL

“Put a donk on it” is a longstanding web meme here in the UK, thanks to a famous YouTube video from the Blackout Crew which introduced the donk genre to a wider public. Anyway, there’s now a website that lets you put a donk on any song you like.

DonkDJ (or Put A Donk On It - it’s unclear whether the URL and the name are the same or different) uses The Echo Nest’s APIs in much the same way that MoreCowbell.dj did last year, except with donks instead of cowbell. You upload an MP3 file, and the site analyses it, then serves up a donk remix.

We’ve been trying it with Al Green and (inevitably) The Sundays, although the former worked much better. Judging by Twitter, the site is becoming a bit of a craze in the UK today. Enjoy it while it lasts! Options to share your remixes on Twitter and Facebook will only help its virality.

“It sort of struck me once, I was reading Marshall McLuhan, and I recommend Marshall McLuhan to everyone here who has not already read some of McLuhan’s work. McLuhan is a terribly influential person in media in the 1960’s, so much so that if you’ve seen the movie Annie Hall you may recall that he appears in that movie with Woody Allen in a line outside of a movie theater, and he’s very well known for having said that the medium is the message. I always wondered what that meant. And now that we live in a time of MP3, I think all of us can acknowledge that McLuhan had it right, that in some ways it’s more about what format something comes in these days than it is even the music itself.

But McLuhan said something else that escaped my notice until say five years ago. He indeed said that you will never understand the media of your time. He said that the media of your time is like the air that you breath. You’re unconscious of it. It’s like the water in which a fish swims. He said that you would only understand your media through the rearview mirror of history. And so it is that it led me back to the library to look through microfiches and so forth from the 1920’s and around that time period, because it was around that time period that electricity started to spread around the world. Before electricity spread around the world, for the most part, it could be said that an artist was in complete control of their art. Especially in the sense that, you know, they controlled it with their feet because if they weren’t in the room you couldn’t see them or hear them. Then in rapid succession over several decades we have the spread of electricity around the world, and loudspeaker systems evolve that make the crowd bigger than you can count. And then very very quickly radio broadcast, and now sounds are traveling many thousands of miles beyond their source. Then television is proven out in 1928. And so now your sound and your image can travel thousands of miles. Now, look, I get how we feel special living in this time that we do of the net. We think, wow, we are beset with change unlike we have ever seen. But I would say that that is absolutely untrue. The 1920’s, the spread of electricity, this was a far more savage time to be an artist. This was a far more difficult time.

Our changes, that we are seeing, are merely a gradation of change by comparison to what happened when electricity spread around the world. And so we have something to rely upon that they did not. We have something to look to, which is: what was their experience; how did they handle this dramatic change. I think that without question the way we handled this dramatic change was with collective licensing. In other words, loudspeaker systems, hotels, restaurants, wherever there are performances of music that are so powerful, we have a collecting society that would like to monetize this, and can and does, monetize the anarchy of music moving through say loudspeakers. And equally true of radio, and television broadcast, and cable, and satellite, and as recently as this past decade, we now monetize webcasting over the net in America in just this same way. And so I don’t think it is a great stretch, or that you have to think too far into the future to realize that it would truly be an anomaly if collective licensing did not extend itself further. It does not require a crystal ball to figure this out.

I think it is just about looking back into history and realizing that the way we have dealt with the loss of control, the loss of actual control, has been with the introduction of actuarial economics. And I know actuarial is a big word, you know, but it’s really simple. It’s just a pool of money and a fair way of splitting it up: a pool of money, a fair way of splitting it up. And that is how we have dealt with the loss of control in the past and I suggest to you it is likely that that will be the way we deal with loss of control now and into the future.”

After being busted with crack at Los Angeles International Airport, Coolio has pled not guilty to charges of drug possession and battery. The rapper, who was named Artis Leon Ivey by his mother, entered his plea on Friday at an arraignment in Los Angeles.

Last month little Artis was arrested at LAX for carting around crack in his suitcase. Oh, and he also attempted to assault – or at least stop – the worker who was searching his bag. He was charged with felony cocaine possession, as well as slapped with a couple of misdemeanors: possession of drug paraphernalia and battery (he grabbed the screener’s arm in an attempt to thwart the drugs from being found in his luggage).

Coolio, of “Gangsta’s Paradise” and (bad) reality television fame, is currently not incarcerated, thanks to bail.

He will be reappearing in court on April 20, unless he goes all DMX on us.

Not really sure if the whole crack thing actually gives Coolio street cred, or just makes him look like even more of a has-been. I’m going to go with the latter; even Whitney Houston knows the truth about crack, as she so eloquently discussed in an interview with Diane Sawyer:

“Crack is cheap. I make too much money to ever smoke crack; let’s get that straight. We don’t do crack. We don’t do that. Crack is whack.”

Telecommunications giant Verizon Wireless has announced today that it is adding more than 5 million mp3s to its online media store. The mp3s will be playable on any device, and therefore without digital rights management (DRM) restrictions. Mike Lanman, vice president and chief marketing officer of Verizon Wireless, said:

“Being the first wireless company to add MP3s to our online media store gives our customers a one-stop shopping experience for all kinds of music — ringtones and ringback tones and now MP3s. We have long led in mobile music, and together with the new pricing options we will continue to set the standard for the industry.”

Tuesday April 7, Verizon will offer several different prices for mp3s purchased online, 69 cents for most classic catalog releases, 99 cents for most major contemporary releases and $1.29 for new releases and best-selling releases. Very similar to iTunes’ tiered pricing.

Verizon is the first telecommunications company in the US to add mp3s its online media store, but perhaps music downloads aren’t the future of the industry, given the rising popularity of streaming services. Verizon is looking to be a direct competitor with iTunes, and the lack of DRM will certainly give an advantage.

On the downside, it seems that pricing isn’t going down, and with so many available music services vying for market share, mp3s probably shouldn’t be so expensive. Should Apple be afraid of the new contender?

Music Ally has confirmed a number of leading international figures as part of its digital sessions at next month’s Great Escape music convention in Brighton. The convention takes place from 14-16 May with all Music Ally sessions taking place on Friday 15 May. Speakers include Spotify founder Daniel Ek, BigChampagne’s CEO Eric Garland and YouTube’s Patrick Walker.

Leading industry figures also taking part in Music Ally sessions include Sony’s Fred Bolza and Seb Weller, and Simply Red manager Ian Grenfell. Sessions include another infamous Music Ally trial in which we put labels in the dock and ask how relevant they are and a hypothetical artist case study marketing session.

Full details can be found on the official Great Escape website.

This major update to Toontrack’s Superior Drummer 2 contains many bug fixes as well as features significantly improving the user experience. It is recommended for all users and is essential for SDX (NY Vol2) support. It can be downloaded immediately from the “software updates” section of the Toontrack site by registered owners.

New Features

Offline bouncing overhaul (see chapter 5 for details):
- New option to not include all bleed and bounce only using the currently used samples
- Option to Bounce through the Mixer, including effects
- Independent Master bounce volume and overload display and Mixer bounce volume
- Progress ‘message’ board showing what mic is currently bounced
- The bounce process can be aborted
- New clearer nomenclature for the names of the bounced files
- New setting to ‘Keep intermediate’ files

New Mixer implementation (see paragraph 4.1 for details):
- New Bus send layout
- Soloing Mics and Busses work recursively so as to allow the sound to reach the Outputs
- ‘Pre’ and ‘Post’ Effect’ send facility for both Mics and Busses
- Drag and Drop for Inserts and Sends
- New Outputs and Busses nomenclature to mirror many hosts

New presets handling (see paragraph 3.6 for details on Combined presets):
- Combined presets for loading/saving Instruments and Mixer Channels properties selectively
- Possibility to load saved files (.S20) as Combined presets
- Load/Save of Instrument groups for most preset types
- New Envelope Curve preset allowing to copy settings to groups of Instruments

Edrum experience improvement (see chapter 6 for details):
- New factory MIDI presets, including pedal correction curves (hatsCtrl only MIDI presets)
- Various bugfixes and improvements to the transmute, mainly in AMB mics and faded drums
- Change to Distribution Groups, improving CC-hihats

Other Changes:
- Superior1 libraries renamed ‘S1 - Cocktail’, ‘S1 - Drummer’ and ‘S1 - Percussionist’
- Reorganized layout for the S1 Drummer factory presets
- Clicking on an anchor point in the Envelope curve is enough to update the display
- When ‘Felt Mallets’ is selected the ‘Bottom Wire Snares’ is deselected
- Preview in Studio window accepts mouse wheel to control articulation choice
- New savefile format that contains the new sub-presets found in the Combined presets
- Improved handling of memory limit exceeded during a bounce
- improved Mic auto-assignment for the X-drums
- X-drums should look like more similar to what they do in their own sound library

Bugfixes

- Typing keys that are out of bound as notes (G#8 or above) is no longer possible
- Mic assignment for the X-drums now shows ‘MixName’ instead of ‘Name’
- Mics that are ’stereo out’ but not ’stereo in’ will no longer receive a silent right channel when bounced
- Bleed/usage/phase controls should no longer change more than the left side for stereo channels that don’t have their sounds as stereo files
- The split selection is reset when changing Sound Library
- Channel pressure is now part of bounce
- Fixed a bounce bug, that after a bounce left the sampler in the state where sounds are loaded in the rendering thread instead of the demon thread
- Local Machine directory created with full access rights on Mac
- Better tolerance for non-ASCII characters in paths on MAC
- In S1-Drummer, crash22 in Ride4 and Ride5 internal names are now unique
- Pressing Load when editing bleed in Cached mode now works better
- Fixed bug in code that removes a trailing ‘Sounds’ from an input sound path
- Fading a non-close mic, early in the mixer, no longer leads to malfunction of the transmute for the other mics
- A negative Offset (envelope) along with pitching no longer leads to pops, crackles and crashes
- Soloing something before applying a preset or a savefile for the same Sound Library no longer leads to issues
- Solo and Mute in the Classic View are now updated when a control or Humanize preset is applied
- Fixed bug that caused crash when selecting a drum without a Close mic with ‘EzMixer follows Selection’ active
- Fixed the bug that caused newly assigned X-drum MIDI notes to not be written in presets or savefiles
- All the ‘X-samplers’ are reset when X Pads are reset, fixes the crashes when changing Vol2 factory presets
- Effects are now reset when the host asks the sampler to go mute. This should avoid ‘clicks’
- Possible bugfix for crashes while changing playing drums on a multi-core machine
- Auth key comparison failure in some cases fixed

More information: www.toontrack.com .

FRANKFURT - Musikmesse /Music Industry Newswire/ — The second product in the V-Studio line - an all-in-one recorder, mixer, interface and DAW controller. SONAR V-Studio 100 provides a compact yet feature-rich music production studio that enables musicians to create, record, produce, and perform music - with or without a computer.

SONAR V-Studio 100 integrates a 24-bit/96kHz high-speed USB 2.0 audio interface, DAW controller, digital mixer, SD recorder, and VS Production Pack - a powerful suite of high quality instruments and effects for Mac and PC. For PC customers just getting started with digital recording, SONAR V-Studio 100 includes the SONAR VS digital audio workstation.

Those SONAR V-Studio 100 features in full:

High speed USB 2.0 interface, featuring:
- 8 in + mix / 6 out at 24-bit/96kHz quality
- 2 mic preamps w/phantom power, hi-z guitar input; MIDI I/O
- ASIO, WDM, WASAPI, Core Audio support
- Compatible with DAWs such as SONAR, Logic, Live, Cubase, and Digital Performer

Universal DAW controller:
Supports all popular digital recording software for Mac and PC via Mackie control protocol, including Logic, Live, Cubase, and Digital Performer. Additionally, V-Studio 100 provides extended control capabilities over SONAR through the implementation of Cakewalk’s Active Controller Technology (ACT). The controller features:

- 100mm motorized, touch-sensitive fader
- 5 rotary encoders, 11 buttons and transport control
- Use with any DAW through Mackie Control protocol
- Advanced control of SONAR through Active Controller Technology

Personal Digital Mixer:
SONAR V-Studio 100 is an ideal digital mixer for small groups, solo performers, DJs, MCs, and any electronic musician who needs to mix multiple sound sources. All users can enhance their live sound with the pro-quality onboard effects that offer easy routing and accessibility.

- Ideal for mixing small bands, solo musicians, DJs, home studios
- 8 inputs, 6 outputs (plus headphones)
- 4 types of reverb and 6 channels of EQ and compression

Mobile SD Recorder Live Player:
Capture that creative moment whenever inspiration strikes! SONAR V-Studio 100 provides high quality digital recording that can be used without being connected to a computer. Record directly to SD-card to capture song ideas, rehearsals or live performances. Create backing tracks on your DAW of choice and transfer them to SD card for playback during live performance - even while recording. Likewise, recorded performances can be easily transferred from the VS-100’s SD-card for additional editing.

- Record away from your computer
- 2-channel wave recording and playback
- Capture rehearsals and live performances
- Play and record along to backing tracks
- Built-in metronome
- Insert markers during recording and playback
- Loop a region for practicing parts or jamming
- Easily transfer audio to and from any computer via USB

VS-100 Production Pack (Win/Mac)
SONAR V-Studio 100 comes with a suite of software instruments and effects, including:

- VX-64 Vocal Strip - a seven-stage processor for shaping and sculpting incredible sounding vocal tracks. Each of the VX-64’s stages have been fine-tuned to be vocal-specific, taking the effort out of dialing in an entire chain of vocal processors. VX-64 features a new Cakewalk technology that employs phase-coherent, multi-band saturation to avoid unwanted distortion. It also has unique filtering to avoid harsh artifacts at extreme high and low frequencies as well as an auto-leveling circuit that prevents the tube saturation from sounding too harsh when high gain transients are processed. VX-64 also employs a new de-essing algorithm designed with Cakewalk’s LP64 linear phase effect filtering technology to remove sibilance without creating any frequency smearing.
- Dimension LE - a streamlined version of the acclaimed Dimension Pro instrument from Cakewalk. Dimension LE features over 400 presets, ranging from bass, organ, and electric piano samples to cutting-edge synth sounds, rhythmic grooves, and even a special edition of Garritan Pocket Orchestra.
- Rapture LE - a special version of the award winning Rapture wavetable synthesizer. It includes over 200 presets and hundreds of oscillator shapes. Rapture LE is perfect for performing the modern synthesized sounds that are igniting today’s pop, dance, and electronic music.
- Cakewalk Studio Instruments - a collection of four virtual instruments that provide a fast and easy way to create backing tracks using a photo-realistic, interactive user interface. Instruments include a Drum Kit, Bass Guitar, Electric Piano and a String Section.
- SONAR VS digital recording software (PC only) - a special entry-level DAW based on the powerful SONAR 8 audio engine but offering a streamlined user interface.

Availability
SONAR V-Studio 100 will be available throughout the world beginning in June 2009. Local prices may vary, please check with your local Roland or EDIROL distributor, or SONAR V-Studio 100 retailer for more details.

For more information on SONAR V-Studio 100 please visit www.sonarvstudio.com.

Andrew Lloyd-Webber led a debate in the UK’s House of Lords yesterday on internet piracy, and didn’t mince his words, looking ten years forward to “a world where there are no longer shops where you can buy the physical products and where the Internet is a Somalia of unregulated theft and piracy”.

Oh, and: “The music business, because of the universal popularity of music, its ease of access and its relatively low bandwidth requirements will be the first to fall, but other cultural industries will surely follow.” He encouraged the UK government to take action, warning that “only if illegal downloading is properly addressed can new business models have the room to breathe and succeed.”

What the fustier members of the House of Lords made of a debate around this new-fangled internet thing is another question, of course, but it’s a sign of how seriously the issue is being taken that it’s being debated in such a forum.

Vodafone Spain has launched a new all-you-can-eat flat-rate data tariff for its customers, which includes unlimited access to music. Customers pay €13.92 (including VAT) a month for the offering, which gives them access to music from all the majors and various independents.

The service uses DRM to ensure that songs stop working when the user stops paying. It’s powered by RealNetworks rather than Vodafone’s existing unlimited music partners Omnifone, which will add fuel to the rumours that the relationship between the two ‘fones is drawing to a close.

Existing Vodafone flat-rate mobile users will get the new service automatically.

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