Web 2.0 social networking: Sound cloud.

Ahoy and welcome to another enthralling post!

So ... Im sure we have all heard of sound cloud 'the music sharing site for any musician!'

The site offers a chance for musicians of any level with a varying quality tracks, to upload their music follow and be followed by musicians. The artist can create a free profile where they can upload 120minutes of music, simple waveform widget to share via Facebook and your other favourite social networking sites.

Sound cloud offers more than just a chance for upcoming artists and producers, it also it a site for venues, managers and promoters where people can listen to the tracks that others represent and can assess the quality of the business managing the bands.



Features:   Sound Cloud features a number of ways to connect with your friends and fellow musicians via many social networking/ blog sites. It also allows the artist to upload their tracks from their phones with over 100 apps to chose from. 

Key players in MIDI.

Native instruments:

One of, if not the biggest contributor to electronic music software/ hardware. The company began in 1995 in a small home office in Berlin-Kreuzberg. Here is where the vision of a new kind of musical instrument was born and turned into reality. Enter Stephan Schmitt, a hardware engineer by trade who developed mixing desks at the time. An active live musician and synthesiser player, Stephan Schmitt had reached the point where he felt profoundly limited by the instruments that were available to him. Hardware synthesizers seemed not only overly bulky and expensive but also very much limited in terms of sonic potential and musical expressiveness.

In his search for a solution, Stephan Schmitt realized that standard personal computers could be used as powerful musical instruments. The ever-growing computational power brought real-time software synthesis into the realm of possibility, and Stephan Schmitt envisioned a computer-based sound-generation platform that could leave existing limitations far behind. Together with programmer Volker Hinz, he developed the concept of the first modular software synthesizer, which was eventually called GENERATOR. A radically innovative approach, GENERATOR allowed for the construction of virtually any kind of sound generation and sound-processing device from a set of basic building blocks, and offered a sonic flexibility that was literally unheard of.  

They offer a massive range of products: (excuse the pun as one of their plugin synths is named massive.) Software such as traktor/ absynth/ massive and hardware such as Mashine (a midi controller.)

However you see it native instruments have made some major advancements and created some of the best quality products on the market today.

(stay tuned for reviews of these products in new posts.)

for now 3spada out!

MOAR MIDI... :P

Midi.... well a midi cable is designed to transport digital bytes (128). with this 0 is counted a number so the volume can be expressed as 0-127.

this means that the maximum amount of data that can flow through at once is 128 bytes. Of course now most midi controllers are connected via usb 'which allows a lot more traffic' but midi still only allows 128, it has been this way from the very beginning. (hence the earlier reference about midi surviving the ages.)

Midi... The platform that survived!

                                  Midi: Musical instrument digital interface.

Midi is the standard electronic language 'spoken' between electronic instruments and the computerized devices which control them during performances. Developed in the early 1980s, MIDI technology allows a keyboardist to kick off a drum synthesizer with one key or a computer to store a sequence of composed notes as a MIDIfile, for example. The keyboard, drum synthesizer and computer all recognize the same set of binary code instructions.


Brief history:


Before midi in the early 1970's electronic musical devices were becoming increasingly common and affordable although there was no compatibility between manufacturers. 


In 1981, Dave smith(an audio engineer) proposed  digital standard for musical instruments at the Audio Engineering Society show in New York. By the time of the January, 1983 Winter NAMM Show, Smith was able to demonstrate a MIDI connection between his Prophet 600 (a later version of the groundbreaking Prophet 5 analog synthesizer) and a Roland JP-6. The MIDI Specification 1.0 was published in August 1983. 


MIDI brought an unprecedented state of compatibility which revolutionized the market by ridding musicians of the need for excessive hardware. In the early 1980s, MIDI was a major factor in bringing an end to the "wall of synthesizers" phenomenon in progressive rock band concerts, when keyboard performers were often hidden behind huge banks of analog synthesizers and electric pianos. Following the advent of MIDI, many synthesizers were released in rack-mount versions, which meant that keyboardists could control many different instruments (e.g., synthesizers) from a single keyboard.

Web 2.0 ........ next edition! .... BELIEVE IT!

Welcome!


So not as many commented as hoped ... never mind i shall  and continue any way.

Well to beging the web 2.0 really opened up many gateways 'some good, some bad'  depending on who's side of the music industry you sympathise with. Moving on the web 2.0 really made its big leaps with sites like google and myspace, where a user could not only read information but interact with the site (not so much google, although it interacts with you as in tailors a search criteria on previous things you have searched and believes will suit you.) Social mediums such as myspace and facebook allow us to connect with a large number of people where we can talk about our selves and share our interests with anyone in the world that has an account.

These sites in relation to musicians have been extremely useful in many ways. The normal way for a musician to be heard just over a decade ago was to play regular gigs, hire managers and publicists etc. on the off chance they would be heard by a record label and get picked up and make it big. This is all a way of the past almost every band i know has an online presence of sorts to up load music, videos, information or even just an update of what is happening in their lives.

if i may contradict myself here just a wee bit, i said that the 'record label' option is a way of the past which in essence is incorrect to say but what i mean is it has taken a step back to these alternative options for an artist to establish themselves. having said this these record labels are taking advantage of the social media as well, they are browsing through these sites listening to tracks determining who the next star could be... as i believe the famed Justin Beiber was discovered via Youtube.

Two little video's to help any musicians out!

Internet evolution ..... GO! Web 2.0

First of all excuse the pokemon pun, :P

But seriously, How many of us know of us actually know what the term 'Web 2.0' means?.... Well it is to my understanding that this term explains the change of the internet, from when websites were once just a page filled with information for us to read 'much like a Word document,' and are now a immeasurable network of connections which allow us to interact with the internet and the pages it contains.

Before i post any more of my thoughts i would be really interested to see others views on the effects of the Web 2.0 on the music industry.

also here is a link to a cool little power point i found online about this topic: http://www.slideshare.net/djwesty/web-20-effecting-the-music-industry

History of the guitar: Video

This a just a short video i found on the history of guitars it does not give loads of detail although it is an interesting video, i do recommend watching it. (leave a comment on what you think)