Android Wear

Today Google announced Android Wear, a tweak/extension to the Android platform. Alongside this 2 Android Ware devices have bean announced the LG G Watch and the Motorola Moto 360 for launch this year. Both smart watches will run Android Ware, an extension of android mobile OS that allows for notifications to be sent to the watches.

The interface its self appears very similar to Google Now just scaled down. Ware devices will have touch screens and work mainly off voice commands however how well this will work remains to be seen.

If the watches are thing enough, ample battery life they and a good price point then Google may win over a large part of the growing wearable market.

The PONO Player

PonoMusic recently smashed there kickstarter goal of $800,000 with well over a month to go. Currently there at around $2.5 million of funding. But what is it?

PonoMusic seem to be selling more of a philosophy than a standard portable media player. The product its self is a triangular prism with a touch secrren, 64GB of built in a storage and a micro SD card slot that focuses on providing hi quality audio rather than a huge collection. This is by no means the first "high quality" audio file player. Astel&Kern have a range of these type of devices however they do not have an online store for such high quality audio.

This is possibly where Pono have ironed out the concept offering an online store for audio up to 192 kHz sample rate.  To put that in to perspective a standard CD has a sample rate of 44.1kHz. This raises another question of how audible is the difference and how many artists are being recorded at this level of detail.

Clearly there is a high demand for this level of audio fidelity however will we see much uptake when the product is launched?

Change of Plan

Dew to the ever changing nature of everything things change.
I know I've only made a few posts but dew to a LOT of uni work i'll be trying to post short updates about each one as and when I progress. Some of the projects ill be doing;

Creating a MIDI echo style plug in using cycling 74's MAX MSP.
Creating a multi guitar FX unit with looper this will also be done using MAX MSP.
Building an HTML site without the use of editors such as dreamweaver.
Writing a research paper as part of a small group project.
Recording, Mixing and Mastering a song.
Programming a drum machine in C#.

So it's gonna be a fun couple of weeks, now I'm of to uni at half 2 on a Saturday.

Mixing Project

One of many modules on my course is studio techniques where we cover recording, mixing and mastering. The most recent assignment for this module was to mix a song. We were provided with a multi-track session in Pro Tools 10 to mix. We were also expected to used some specific techniques such as parallel compression, parts doubling and side chain plugins.

After listening to the track in Pro Tools it was clear the track needed a lot of work, the drums were weak (the kick lacked attack), the harmonica was very shrill and the levels on all the tracks fluctuated a large amount throughout.  As my marks have now come back I can put it up for so you can listen. 

I'm happy with the out come but would like to spend a little more time on the track just to bring out a little more clarity to the vocals and to reduce the compression a bit in the first section.

The original song is Sister Cities by Hop Along and can be found on there bandcamp.

New Year, New Start

New year’s resolution: Post things on this blog.

With the first month or 2 of this blog being very slow I’ve decided that this year I will start to make more regular posts on here.  This post will mainly be about my work at university and will mostly be for my own benefit but you are more that welcome to read them too.

This week I have had to focus my attention towards finishing a group project I have been working on with 4 students from the Game course. The task was to create a game that would utilise the Kinect system. While the game students worked on this it was down to me to create all the audio for the game.

First and most obviously I need sounds of a bowling alley. After some phone calls to some bowling alleys’ it was clear I wouldn’t be able to get in and record audio before anyone turned up. So unfortunately I had to make the most of free sounds online with lots of editing. I used 2 online sounds to create the key things I needed. One the sound of a strike and the other a thunder rumble.

The strike sounds was cut up to single out a pin sound. After this the clip was copied and each then given slight variations in pitch and timing. This gave me 7 very different sounding pin strikes.

The thunder rumble was used to help with the sound of the bowling ball rolling. I recorded a coin rolling along a desk several times, once crossfaded this gave a long noisy rolling sound. I needed to fill out the low end. I tried to some EQ and pitch shift but still couldn’t get the right sound so instead I used the thunder rumble sound and it worked a treat.

Game music was also created and needed to fit in with the game. I opted for a laidback jazz style piece created entirely synthetically. The key reason for this was that it needed to be done over Christmas and I did not have access to the studios. I’m usually one to favour recordings over synths and don’t often enjoy making synth based music but I did enjoy this project.

Why am I here

You may be asking yourself questions such as, "why am I here?", "What exactly am I looking at?" and "why is there not a cat GIF on this specific page of the internet?". To be honest i'm asking myself the same questions. So this is a small Q and A that i will probably add to over time.

"Why am i here?"
I don't know why you are here that's a question for yourself.

"Why are you here?"
Just to share some opinions, talk about some and show a little bit of what I do.

"What do you do?"
I'm currently in my second year studding Music and Audio Technology at Bournemouth University where I will hopefully graduate from in 2016 with a BSc.

"What is Music and Audio Tech?"
My course contains a lot of variety, I have modules in topics such as, Studio techniques, Midi and Sequencing, Syntheses and Effects, Software programming, Electronics, Business and even some Sound for video games.

"What are you gonna do with that degree?"
While i have no specific ideas at the moment i would like think it could help me get a job somewhere in the music industry or the tech industry but hopefully somewhere in between. Software development, sound for game, audio hardware design, R&D, a mix of everything the list could go on.

"Why did you choose your course?"
I have a passion for computers and music. It fits me perfectly.

"What are you gonna put on here?"
Any thing form general tech and gadgets, music technology, programming,  PC build logs.

Google Music

This week saw the launch of Google music in the UK. On the surface it looks like just another digital music store but it is much more than that. You can upload 20,000 of your own tracks to it, then stream and download them to any device. This launch runs alongside the launch of Google’s new tablets and phone running android 4.2.

The service is free of charge you just need a Google account to get started. Then you can purchase music through the Google play store and start to upload your music which is a surprisingly simple process. You download the dedicated upload tool, direct it to where your music is stored, then let it upload the music. After this you can play your music through the Google music webpage or via the music app on android.This is built into Google devices following criticism due to the lack of up-gradable storage on the nexus 4 phone that was announced a few weeks ago.

Google Music cover flow on Nexus 4

After using the service for a few days now I can say that I love it. It’s perfect for getting all my music wherever I am. The music app on the Nexus 7 and the Nexus 4 performs fantastically and it has a nice look and feel. I love the cover flow (pictured Right) and also the instant mix feature that is a playlist that automatically collects songs that are similar.

I like this service as it offers a good way to back up your music online for free. I like that you can stream your music on many devices and the compatibility with android. Currently there is no official app on IOS however there are various unofficial apps available. Over all this is a fantastic service from Google and I expect to see other companies do similar things soon.You can get started with Google music at https://play.google.com/music/

Google Music music playback on nexus 4

Google Music Web Player