SoundCtrl » mobile & tablet

Announcing the 2013 FlashFWD Nominees – Vote For Your Favorites Now

SoundCtrl — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 14:00:39 +0000

SoundCtrl is proud to announce our nominees for the 4th Annual FlashFWD Awards – honoring excellence and innovation in music technology.

Every year, we’re excited by the steady and explosive growth of technology that is changing the ways we create, perform, discover and listen to music. Since the inception of FlashFWD in 2010, we’ve seen the industry shift, adjust and evolve many times over.

This year, there are simply too many companies and individuals we wanted to recognize. We feel compelled open up the conversation to you – the artist, the fan, the influencer – who do you think deserves a 2013 FlashFWD Award?

Submit your vote for each of our six categories through our 2013 ballot hosted right HERE on SoundCtrl!

Best in Discovery | Best in Live | Best in Mobile & Tablet

Best in Artist Support | Best in Gaming | SoundWAV Influencer Award

See if your favorites make the cut on Wednesday, May 22nd at the Gramercy Theatre where we will welcome nominees, artists, entrepreneurs, and industry elite to celebrate our 2013 honorees, with special performances by guests TBA.

The voting period ends in two weeks and honorees will be announced in May. Congratulations to all our nominees and looking forward to another amazing FlashFWD season!

To check out what went down in 2012, visit our recap HERE and check out what past winners think about FlashFWD HERE.

If you’d like to receive a press pass and/or interview the SoundCtrl board about the event, please email [email protected].

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Best in Discovery: Past honorees include Spotify (2012), The Echo Nest (2011), Hype Machine (2010)

Recognizing a product or service that has most significantly impacted and improved the way fans discover and share recorded music

1) Songza 2) NPR Music 3) YouTube 4) Mixify 5) Rap Genius

Best in Live: Past honorees include Square (2012), The Creator’s Project (2011)

Recognizing a product, service or organization that has most significantly improved the live concert experience from either a fan or artist perspective

1) Boiler Room 2) V Squared Labs 3) Superfly Presents 4) ID&T

Best in Mobile & Tablet: Past honorees include Snibbe Interactive for Biophilia (2012), SoundTracking (2011)

Recognizing a product or service that is breaking new ground in mobile technology and expanding upon traditional fan engagement

1) Pheed 2) Groovebug 3) Biobeats 4) Instagram

Best in Artist Support: Past honorees include BandPage (2012), SoundCloud (2011), Indaba Music (2010)

Recognizing a product or service that focuses on giving artists more options in creating and promoting their music independently

1) Tumblr 2) Jamplify 3) PledgeMusic 4) (New) Myspace

Best in Gaming: A Brand New Category

Recognizing a game, creator or organization that demonstrates innovation in music integration with a gaming platform, be it through soundtrack, virtual marketplace, or unique partnership.

1) Video Star App 2) SoundPlay by Pitchfork 3) Kinect for XBOX 360 4) Virgin Gaming

SoundWAV Influencer Award: Past honorees include Scooter Braun (2012), Troy Carter (2011)

Recognizing an individual who has significantly impacted digital music culture through the early adoption or creation of new technology and is seen as a visionary and voice in the music tech industry

1) Bill Werde 2) Jimmy Iovine 3) Amanda Palmer 4) Guy Oseary 5) Questlove

Soundwave Discovery App now in Beta

SoundCtrl — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 14:00:43 +0000

By Kira Grunenberg

Soundwave, a fledgling company based out of Dublin, Ireland, has stepped into the digital music arena with their namesake app. They offer music listening, discovery, liking and sharing, much like any other music app out on the market already – but Soundwave has got the formula laid out in a surprisingly different and very cool way.

Much in the way that Twitter has – for better or worse – led to a greater importance of the speed of dissemination of information, Soundwave’s “Music Map” feature also emphasizes instantaneous awareness and real-time coexistence of music through the world’s digital devices. Anyone logged into and actively scrolling through Soundwave will see artists and songs in the feeds of those they follow. The songs shown are often playing at that very moment, and the rest is backlog of what one’s followers were listening to farther in the past as one scrolls downward. The map feature turns the user into that of a virtual musical jet-setter.

Want to see what’s playing, this very second, in all of Africa? Hit the “draw” button on the map and a free form tool activates, converting the drawing of a simple circle with one’s finger, into a designated search area. Soundwave refers to these as “sound circles.” If there are any Soundwave users within the hand drawn area, Google Maps-style dropped pins appear and one can either zoom in, to see exactly where the music is active, tap the pins right from the map to see the where each song is playing right off the map, or, hit the results tab and see the songs in list form for immediate perusal. Might not seem like much of an adventurous undertaking at first but, just start exploring the world –by continent, country or crowded metropolis, and it becomes very hard to pull away.

Despite the internet’s reach, the fact that it still takes a considerable amount of effort or communication simply to find out what native artists are popular in another country says a lot about how segmented the global music scene still feels –particularly when searching within the US.

Once a user has compiled a sizable feed full of likes they have put on others’ tracks, “giving back” and building one’s own library might incite a bit of frustration. “Where’s the upload button?” “Where’s the mic feature to identify and convert music playing at my local bar?” Soundwave has neither of these. This begs the question of how tracks come to be in the app at all. The answer is that there are no buttons or converters to deal with whatsoever. (It took me a little while to figure this out because I skipped the initial intro pages, believing the interface would be self-explanatory). The only requirement to build oneself up as an avid Soundwave user, is to listen to music. That’s it –really. The only catch to that is that the music has to be played on the device loaded with the Soundwave app. The app automatically detects when a user has music playing on their device’s native music app and after a song plays, the information is quickly and accurately retrieved and put in one’s Soundwave activity feed. Listening to an hour long mix during a workout at the gym? That’s an easy 9-10 tracks added to your feed by the time the playlist ends. Music you are finding and enjoying in the app from others can also be played while it is minimized and you are doing other things. Users can also access their in-phone cameras to pull different photos to use as their profile image.

The rest of Soundwave’s features are very comfortable and familiar. The usual jargon of “Like” and “Follow” have been mentioned but “Buckets” and “Humdingers” are two terms new to the scene. The former term acts like a sharing feature. Hit a song to play and if that song is something you want another user that you follow to hear, tapping the “Bucket” feature will bring up a list of one’s followers and a single tap will “drop” the currently cued up track into that person’s bucket. So long as the filter to hide bucket activity is not turned on, the next time the selected user logs in, the bucket symbol with the chosen song will be in their feed, telling them the song came as a recommendation from another user. There is also a bucket section where users can go just to see what others have left them, much like the “@” reply feature on Twitter. Humdingers represent something akin to super-favorites, as they have their own filter and can be singled out for easy access and replay, as well as being songs users can select to represent their “song of the moment” that will sit alongside their user name on their profile. Ratings are Soundwave’s version of the Like and Dislike a la Pandora, but, a large or small number of either has no bearing on a user’s ability to play their music –even if everyone were to give it a dislike. The purpose of the feature for the moment, is to help gage and determine the most liked and disliked tracks.

Seeing as Soundwave is still in beta, there’s room for devlopers compassion, as the app is going to be changing even more profusely in the coming weeks and months, to be sure. Still, this is where questions start arising. The ratings system, for example, with the “most liked” and “most disliked…” what are the grouping parameters for compiling those lists? Are they lists made up of songs from people I follow? My immediate geographical location? State? Global Soundwave users? The fact that Soundwave is intended to highlight groups to show what’s trending and popularly played in the real world… well, I would want to know which “sound circle” of people made the Top 20 what it is.

Furthermore, is there a way to delete songs from a user’s feed? Suppose one’s iPhone or Android is left playing music on the table while one’s hands are full doing something else. Unexpectedly, the music shuffle feature cues up a horribly embarrassing guilty pleasure song from 10 years ago and it syncs with Soundwave before the song can be changed. The ease with which Soundwave’s very fluidly disclosing nature could unleash “TMI” upon anyone who one might know also using Soundwave, is not the most fun thing to think about.

If alerting people to your exact location is not something you want, Soundwave might not be your socialization form of choice. (The pins themselves are anonymous but if you sign up via Facebook, any location info you have filled in there will be automatically listed in your Soundwave user information). Though spreading around favorite songs probably is not a cause for alarm.

Soundwave being at the stage it is right now, the social grouping-focused app seems to be in very sharp form. There are going through some expected growing pains of the beta world –crashing, slight lagging and such– but the system in place offers to report any or all bugs a user experiences with the app. The company plans on remaining in private beta into the near future, in order to address these minor issues and to improve the total user experience through observation and feedback, which can be provided directly from the feedback menu in the app.

The current incarnation of the private beta is full but you can sign up to be in line for the next “wave” by visiting this page.

There’s also a special bonus if you are really anxious to try the app out ASAP: The Soundwave team has uploaded a mini game onto their site and after you have landed on the waiting list, if you play the game and make it to level 12, you jump the line to the front of the digital queue. Make it four more levels up to 16 and Soundwave names you a permanent VIP!

Kira is an old school music nerd with a love for all things creative; always searching for music’s common ground. She graduated with an M.A. in Performing Arts Administration from New York University. Drop her a tweet @shadowmelody1

Portugal. The Man are a bunch of #mophos

SoundCtrl — Mon, 22 Apr 2013 14:34:40 +0000

By David Chaitt, SoundCtrl Board Member

Going to Ad Age Digital Conference, I had little or no understanding of photo app developer Aviary. Tobias Peggs, their CEO, was one of the most fun and informative speakers I’ve seen in a while. He gave the audience a full download on all things #mopho aka mobile photography, which is a term with which I admittedly wasn’t familiar.

Aviary powers the photo editing functionality for 3700 apps including Wallmart, Twitter, Flickr, Photobucket, and their own app. Their filters have been used on 3.5 Billion photos. Needless to say, they are experts at what they do. They know what #mophos want.

During his presentation, he also briefly alluded to a recent partnership with Atlantic Records for the launch of Portugal. The Man’s new record “Evil Friends”. All I gathered was that users could download a photo app powered by Aviary where special photo filters could allow users to create stickers inspired by the band. Take a look at the Instagram photo stream to put a visual to what this exactly means.

To get a little more context and detail to what the partnership entailed, I reached out to Atlantic and was put in touch with their Director of Digital Marketing, Thanh Nguyen. He had the following to add:

John Gourley, Portugal. The Man’s frontman, is also a visual artist. Along with his art collaborator, Austin Sellers (together known as The Fantastic The), Gourley designs all things visual for the band—album covers, photo illustrations, tour sets, and more.

The Evil Friends sticker pack with Aviary was a perfect partnership, as John was already creating images on his own by drawing on photos to correspond with the theme of the album, Evil Friends , and posting them on the band’s Instagram. Aviary’s technology allowed us to give fans a chance to create their own artwork inspired by John’s.

Because Portugal. The Man has always been so hands-on in all visual aspects of their music, a photo centric campaign just felt very natural for both the band and their fans.

Aviary has an amazing product with a large network of users, so they were the perfect partners for us. It’s often easy to have low quality photos/submissions when you’re running a UGC campaign, but with an app like Aviary and the Evil Friends sticker pack, a casual user can easily create their own images in line with the artist’s vision and aesthetic.

Whether you’re a fan of the band or not, it’s probably a good idea to download the app and try to think about how you can push the needle a little more to engage all the #mopho junkies out there.

Now Playing: Twitter #Music Launches on Browser and Mobile

SoundCtrl — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 15:02:31 +0000

Twitter #Music is now up and running as Twitter announced this morning on Good Morning America and via a blog post.

According to the post, which claims that the new service will “change the way people find music,” Twitter #Music will utilize twitter activity to “detect and surface the most popular tracks and emerging artists.” It also places an emphasis on what music artists themselves are listening to and follows a spiderlike web of tweets and engagement to draw connections between artists with similar tastes.

Currently, the service pulls its music from iTunes, Spotify, or Rdio. By default, previews will come direct from iTunes but Spotify and Rdio subscribers can log into their accounts to access full streams… pretty smart to engage across multiple platforms rather than creating a clear alliance with just one and cannibalizing other listener activity. Twitter also claims that it will make a concentrated effort to “explore and add other music service providers.”

The browser version is very user friendly and is reminiscent of We Are Hunted’s design, with artist’s images loaded into squares that when clicked, allow you to listen to the track, follow the artist, compose a tweet or go purchase the song. Also pulled from We Are Hunted’s interface is the ability to rearrange the checkboard based on filters like “Popular,” which sources music that is trending on Twiiter, “Emerging” which claims to find hidden talent found in tweets, “Suggested” which suggests the music your favorite artists listen to, and “Now Playing” which is music tweeted by the people you follow.

All in all, it’s a bold move from Twitter which as long desired to enter the music space. Twitter is ripe with data that can make connections between fans, artists and music that is visible nowhere else. The app is available in the App Store and the web version is live now.

Better Know a FlashFWD Nominee – Pheed

SoundCtrl — Mon, 15 Apr 2013 14:00:27 +0000

By Jason Epstein

VOTE FOR PHEED FOR BEST IN MOBILE & TABLET HERE

Pheed is a free social media platform that puts an emphasis on creative endeavors with content creation, monetization of one’s offerings and simple copyrighting all tied together by the ability to upload text, photos, videos and audio in a single place. Sound Ctrl writer Jason Epstein spoke with Pheed Communications Director Chrysta Olson about Pheed’s members, features and what’s coming next.

SoundCtrl- Whenever someone is faced with joining a new social media platform they ask themselves unconsciously how it will benefit them. Can you tell us how Pheed works, how it differs from competitors such as Facebook and how it benefits users?

Chrysta Olson - People are becoming overwhelmed with how many options there are for sharing content online. You have Twitter for text, Instagram for photos, Viddy or Vine for videos, Soundcloud for sound, Ustream for live broadcast. With so many options, it becomes difficult to know where to put your content, and no one wants to have a dozen apps on their phone. The idea behind Pheed is that you can share all forms of digital content in one place, in one clean and easy to use app.

The all-in-one approach is definitely one of the appeals of Pheed. We are also the first social platform that allows users to monetize their content if they wish to do so. While it is free to join Pheed, and many users choose to share their content for free, we believe it is fair to offer content creators the option to monetize their content if they feel the desire to do so. Our hope in the long run is that this will incentivize great content creation for the web.

Another big benefit to the platform is that users own and control all of their content. For creatives – photographers, artists, musicians, actors, comedians, athletes, brands, etc., this is very appealing as we live in a digital age where it’s not clear who owns what. Pheed users can actually select a ‘copyright’ button, which will encrypt a physical watermark on photos and videos with the channel holders name so that content is always linked back to its creator.

SC – Pheed’s tag line is “Express Yourself”. What kind of user does Pheed generally attract and how are they able to express their individuality?

CO - Pheed has become especially popular among creatives, entertainers and youth. Users between age 15 to 25 make up 84% of the overall user base, there are over 500 verified Twitter users on Pheed and over 700 of the top 5,000 most followed users on Instagram. Brands such as MTV, Bravo, People, Hurley, Vibe, and Nasa are also using Pheed as a social media outlet for their content.

On Pheed, users can upload photos, videos, music, voice-clips, and text to their channels – with very few limits on the size or shape of the content. If you really wanted to, you could upload a feature length film on your Pheed channel. Additionally, if you feel your content is worthy of having people pay to access it, you can place a paywall on your channel, or do a live broadcast pay-per-view video. Users select the price, and as mentioned above, they always own and control the rights to their content.

SC – What’s next for Pheed?

CO - An update to the iOS app with new privacy settings and live broadcasting pay-per-view via the app (currently available via the web) will be released early April. Our Android app is also currently in development, and due for release the end of April 2013.

Facebook Expected to Announce Its Phone This Afternoon

SoundCtrl — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 15:17:58 +0000

By Somin Sengupta via The New York Times

“The company will make its biggest leap yet in that direction Thursday, when it is expected to introduce a moderately priced phone, made by HTC, powered by Google’s Android operating system, and tweaked to showcase Facebook and its apps on the home screen…

Facebook already functions much like a phone, allowing users to chat, send group messages and even, in one experiment with users in Canada, to make free phone calls over the Internet. Its platform hosts a variety of applications that deliver things like music and news, and its newsfeed has been tweaked to showcase photos, which is what Facebook users post by the millions everyday.

There are fledgling experiments with commerce. Facebook users can buy online and offline gifts on Facebook with their credit cards. Equally important, Facebook’s insistence on real names means that Facebook can be something like an identity verification service. It is well-positioned to be a kind of mobile wallet, containing the equivalent of an identity card and seamless way to buy things.

‘They want to have all the services that consumers want to use in the mobile world,’ said Karsten Weide, an analyst with IDC. ‘They want to be the major consumer Internet platform.’”

For the full story, visit www.nytimes.com

To watch a live blog of Facebook’s announcement, visit www.news.cnet.com at 10:00AM PT

UPDATE, 4:15 PM: Facebook announces Facebook Home

Exclusive Concert Footage and Memorabilia Brought to You by the Concert Vault iPad App

SoundCtrl — Thu, 04 Apr 2013 13:00:38 +0000

By Carolyn Heneghan

With a plethora of artists and events, liner notes and memorabilia, the Concert Vault website and now iPad app aim to augment your experience of live music footage.

The idea began with all-things-music company Wolfgang’s Vault—“Where Live Music Lives”—and their idea to expand upon their Concert Vault website to reach users’ mobile devices. Beginning with Sonos, Android and iPhone apps, this endeavor eventually moved on to the iPad, where they’ve put together the most enveloping app yet.

“This idea was to give people a more robust experience than going to the site on the iPad,” said George Howard, COO and business developer for Wolfgang’s Vault. “It’s a very immersive experience of the product and website, from videos to artist info to photos to all the tracks. It’s the best music experience out there.”

In order to make this idea a reality, they partnered with Groovebug, who would provide them with an already successful platform that would work for their website. Known for their Blue Note app, which features an enormous catalog of jazz footage, Groovebug leapt at the chance to work with Concert Vault, and began their collaboration in October 2012.

“I came across Concert Vault, and they just had such an amazing catalog of music videos and memorabilia—perfect for our platform,” says Groovebug CEO and cofounder Jeremiah Seraphine. “I contacted the CEO of Wolfgang’s Vault and told him about the platform we were developing. They thought it was a great fit as well.”

“[Groovebug has] an approach that they’ve used with others, and we have our own ideas and goals,” says Howard. “But it was very collaborative and great in terms of taking our ideas as they had a fresh set of eyes. We worked well together toward getting the sum greater than the single part.”

The finished product is one that seamlessly blends the two companies’ products and services. From the moment you open the app, you know that you’re in for something unique and unlike any online music experience you’ve had before.

The homepage displays a selection of featured videos in a panel of squares on the left and a catalog of artists on the right. Across the top you’ll find a selection of channels that you can choose from to browse more specific videos to suit your tastes. These currently include rock, blues, jazz, country, folk & bluegrass and indie. Selecting one of these genres will pull up a more specific set of videos and artist catalog.

The amount of artists, streaming videos and curated playlists you’ll find—hundreds of thousands—is nearly overwhelming. You can search specifically for who or what you’re looking for, or you can spend hours skimming over every artist and video they have built in to this expansive app. Plus, once you’ve selected a performance to watch, additional features help to immerse you even more into each artist or video you’ve selected.

“We try to use our platform to build a really immersive experience around music that is 360 degrees,” says Seraphine. “You’re getting videos, really detailed liner notes, images, comments from users, memorabilia—all of which we pull together to take that to a different library of music.

“This app is not like Spotify where content is all the same across all sites,” says Howard. “We have our own content that you can’t get anywhere else for a truly unique experience.”

As an example of the type of video content they provide, classic rock aficionados will enjoy a deep catalog of performances, including one exclusive, historic performance of the Grateful Dead right after they changed their name featuring Ken Kesey on the microphone. Indie fans will appreciate plenty of their own performances such as Daytrotter, Bon Iver, Mumford and Sons and concerts from the recent 2013 South by Southwest. Even Paste magazine concerts will be included in the app, along with hundreds of thousands of others.

The app just launched in March of this year, and after a one-week free trial, membership is available for $3.99 per month or $39.99 per year. Members now get two free featured downloads per week, which are hand-picked by Concert Vault editors. You can also buy a gift membership for the music lovers in your life.

The app caters to both new users and to providing a better experience for current subscribers of Concert Vault. In addition, the app is continuously added to as time goes on.

“Like everything that we do, it will be continuously improving and adding features,” says Howard. We’re really at the very edge of technology between airplay function, the preference engine and a lot of things that I think a lot of iPad apps are just starting to get. We will continue to refine the experience and add more functionality as we evolve—but we come out of the gate really, really strongly.”

Concert Vault is now available for download on the iPad for a free week trial, followed by a monthly or annual membership. It is also available for download for the iPhone, Android and Sonos.

SoundHound & Rdio Launch New Andriod Tablet App

SoundCtrl — Fri, 29 Mar 2013 16:36:14 +0000

By Josh Ong via The Next Web

“Music search company SoundHound has released a new tablet-optimized version of its Android app with a redesigned layout, improved music discovery and Rdio as a launch partner.

SoundHound, which has over 130 million users worldwide, says the app has been designed specifically with the Google’s Nexus 7 and Nexus 10 tablets, as well as the Kindle Fire and Kindle HD in mind… ‘By utilizing the tablet’s larger screen space and leveraging new tools from Google, users can much more fluidly navigate within the app and have access to more content in one location,’ VP James Hom said in a statement.”

To check out all of the SoundHound 5.3 updates and for the rest of the story, visit www.nextweb.com

MyStation App Relaunched: Your Personalized Boost for Radio and Market Research

SoundCtrl — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 13:00:03 +0000

By Kira Grunenberg

The ConVergence Radio Conference, which just ended yesterday, is an annual event in its sixth year of operation. A gathering of professionals held in Santa Clara, California, this conference focuses mainly on exploring the ideas and digital technologies radio needs to embrace, in order to stay relevant in this “post dot-com” era. A product of the minds at Radio Ink Magazine, this year’s conference hosts many different individuals and companies –from the long established to the newly up-in-coming.

One interesting piece of tech to take note of, which happened to be the subject of a panel for the conference’s first day, is the MyStation App. Developed by Indianapolis-based, digital marketing agency, Boost Media Entertainment, this platform-type app caters to creating apps for individual radio stations and is intended for not only regular music listeners but owner-operators and radio marketers as well. While Boost Media and the MyStation App have been around for a few years already, (Boost Media was founded in 2009), the latter of the two is being relaunched today, with new some new design and new features, all developed by keeping user feedback in mind.

First though, here is a brief summary of what the MyStation App is, and does, for its clientele, as quoted from their official website.

When you plug into MyStation App you’ll get much more than just a [radio player] app. You’ll gain access to our Network of resources, to ensure that your mobile program is successful. We help you connect with your listeners like never before, with our exclusive interactive features. And we help you monetize your app, creating new streams of digital revenue for your station.

If this product concept seems somewhat familiar, that might be because the idea of a customized app experience is similar to the popular offering of Conduit mobile for apps built around individual artists or bands. (See this past piece on rapper, Meek Mill’s Conduit mobile app). Some current users of the MyStation App are WJOB, JOY FM, WTTS, and Power 800, among others.

Don’t think though, that this is simply a “cookie-cutter copy” of Conduit’s methods converted for radio stations. While the similar comparison of catering to specific stations versus specific artists is there, the interface and intended uses are unique to MyStation. Within the app itself, a rating system has been added. The company admits to this decision being influenced by Pandora but as is explained in Radio Ink’s brief report of the relaunch, “The MyStationApp data is more specific (not just a thumbs up or down) and can be curated for use as real music research.” A running five point scale is available for rating every song one listens to in the app.

For the owner-operators and marketers who use MyStation, many of the new benefits are privately accessed via the web and include things like real time analytics and a “CMS Dashboard,” meant to neatly aggregate all of the content for one’s particular station app and allow for easier, faster sharing. Content can be dispersed from the dashboard across “all of your listener connections: mobile app, website/blog, loyalty database and even [the ability to] geo target PUSH notifications.”

Lastly, and probably the most intriguing aspect of MyStation’s relaunch, is their new “Sales Training” element. Personalized consultation and support from the company’s assembled team of specialists is what Boost Media hopes will help those in radio sales to “full embrace mobile,” as Jason Acquisto, co-creator of the MyStation App and Senior Account Executive of Boost Media, told Radio Ink. Sales materials and informative presentations on top of the training work together to enhance a business user’s experience and makes them more effective in the mobile tech space for the much longer term.

You can read more about MyStation App here.

App Review: DeliRadio

SoundCtrl — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 13:00:25 +0000

by Dave Mainella

Last fall, SoundCtrl discussed the idea of hyperlocalism – “creating super-niche products for a specific community”. The trend continues with DeliRadio’s app for local social radio.

DeliRadio, also accessible through its website, offers free, location-based, streaming music. The hyperlocal service gives users the opportunity to listen to emerging bands performing nearby and established artists passing through town on tour.

The app performs accurately and easily. After installing and opening the app on your iPhone or Android device, the immediate call-to-action is a simple “Quick Play,” creating a playlist based on your automatically detected geographical location. The music begins, with most of the visual space consumed by the track’s artwork. The app also displays basic information, including artist, track name, and when and where the band is playing next. A simple music player at the bottom allows pause, skip, and back-track functionality.

Tapping the info link displays a biographical write-up of the band, all upcoming shows for the next two months (powered by Songkick), and links to the band’s websites and social media outlets. There are also links to directly purchase music. DeliRadio boasts that they do not take any commission or fee out of digital sales through their app.

A glance at the entire location-generated playlist reveals an incredibly wide range of bands performing at most nearby venues over the next two days. While I’m sure the list is far from complete (New York is certainly a saturated music environment), it offers more than enough of a selection to choose from, or simply listen to. DeliRadio has 100% artist consent for streaming music.

DeliRadio also includes a database of local venues where each venue lists all of their upcoming shows, a trending and featured category, and filters by proximity, genre, and date.

Signing up for a free account grants access to additional features like bookmarking tracks and artists, creating and saving your own stations, and sharing on Facebook, Twitter, and directly from phone to phone – social aspects of the app that seem key to its sustainability and growth.

The app performs exactly as advertised, making it easy to find nearby shows and preview the music. It would be interesting (and perhaps nearly impossible) to note the effectiveness in drawing concert-goers.

The DeliRadio app is available for free at the iTunes App store and through Google Play.

Weezic: Augmenting the Musician’s Practicing Experience

SoundCtrl — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 16:00:46 +0000

By Carolyn Heneghan

To musicians’ delight, augmented sheet music apps have begun popping up in their mobile devices’ app stores over the past few years. The app developers’ intentions are to improve upon the practicing experience by providing playback, feedback and adjustable settings to personalize practice sessions for professional, intermediate and beginner musicians alike.

One such app, Weezic, is now available for free for iPad, following up their Weezic Web app. Weezic aims to offer musicians real time music recognition and analysis by providing a variety of features alongside an interactive composition and live scoring system that evaluates the musician’s performance as he or she goes along.

To begin, click on a piece of music from the catalog on the app’s home screen, and it will download to your device. When it opens, the music page will fill your screen except for buttons and statistics along the bottom and a salmon pink cursor at the beginning of the piece. Press play and the orchestra will begin playing the music while the cursor turns blue and follows each note of the piece as it is played. When the music reaches the end of the page, the app will automatically turn the page for you until you reach the end of the composition.

Selecting the loop option will start the piece again once you reach the end, or you can select certain portions of the piece to be looped for practice.

In terms of what you can play, there are currently 14 pieces available in this free app with a catalog of thousands more on the way. These tracks include several Joseph Haydn and Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart pieces such as Haydn’s “String Quartet No. 35, Op. 42” and Mozart’s “Clarinet Concerto, K.622.” There are selections from other composers as well, such as Gabriel Fauré’s “Dolly Suite, Op. 56” and Franz Schubert’s “Schwanengesang, D.957.” There is usually one movement included, except for Benedetto Marcello’s “Recorder Sonata No. 2, Op. 2,” which has both the first and second movements, and Vincent d’Indy’s “Choral varié, Op. 55,” which is the piece in its entirety.

There are many adjustable features which can be brought up or hidden by hitting the settings button at the bottom-right of the screen:

Evaluation. One of the most valuable features of this app is that it evaluates your progress as you perform with the orchestra. For example, it tells you how many notes you’ve played out of the total, and it gives you a red, yellow or green rating based on how many notes you hit correctly as well as how on time you hit the notes. This is a unique feature for practicing musicians, who normally don’t have anyone “grading” their alone or at-home rehearsal time. This can give you a better idea of what notes or sections you need to work on in the piece. You can toggle on and off the evaluation mode using the last button at the bottom of the screen.

Accompaniment. You may not want the featured instrument to play, as you may want to practice those notes on your own with only the accompaniment. Conversely, you may want to play without the accompaniment to match the featured instrument’s playing. Or you may not want either to play with either so you can solely be graded on your performance without any other instruments in the background. For whichever way you choose, the app allows you to toggle on and off the other instruments so that you can select or mute the tracks as you wish.

Pitch and Tempo. You can play around with the pitch and tempo of the playback. If you want the accompaniment to be adjusted a few pitches or higher or lower, it is easy to do that before and during the song. You can also slow down or speed up the composition’s playback to suit your practicing needs. In that same screen, you can toggle on and off a metronome countdown before the song begins.

Page Turns: You can select the mode of page-turning—for example, if you prefer the pages to turn based on a certain number of bars or seconds. You can adjust these up and down as you wish to suit your own playing style.

This app has a handful of unique and compelling features that can be handy for musicians as they practice. The Weezic iPad app is currently free to download with more catalog and feature expansion to come in the future. In the realm of augmented sheet music apps, this one could be a great addition for any musician, pro, beginner or anyone in between.

SoundTracking now plays full tracks and videos

SoundCtrl — Wed, 27 Feb 2013 21:23:50 +0000

By Ken Yeung – via The Next Web

Schematic Labs’ SoundTracking, a mobile app to capture your musical moment, is releasing a new update to its service for its iPhone and Android apps. Perhaps the most notable of the update is that the app will contain a “Smart Play” button. With this feature, users can tap on it to watch the full-length video or listen to the complete song that someone has shared through the app right from YouTube, Spotify, and Rdio.

For full story visit TheNextWeb.com

Limited Run Introduces Ticketing Module

SoundCtrl — Wed, 13 Feb 2013 13:00:28 +0000

by Dave Mainella

Direct-to-fan platform Limited Run has been working hard to present a uniquely efficient and attractive home base for independent artists and labels. We first wrote about them after their relaunch last year, and last week, Limited Run announced their biggest upgrade to date: unveiling a new ticket selling module.

The idea is to bring the concept of managing Will Call lists and ticket sales into the age of digital, DIY innovation. The ticketing module is integrated directly into an artist’s or label’s storefront, allowing them to advertise and sell tickets to shows through their Limited Run store. Tickets are featured in their own dedicated “shows” area in the storefront.

SoundCloud integration, as on product pages, makes it so fans purchasing tickets don’t have to scour the internet to check out music before attending the show. Limited Run rightly explains the simple justification for this feature; “Keeping the fan on the ticket and product pages is a great way to increase engagement.”

To keep with the theme of engagement, the ticketing system is also integrated with Google Maps and multiple calendar programs, including Google, iCalendar, and Outlook, so that fan’s have all the essential details they need directly through the platform. Email notifications are built in as well, just in case fans forget.

Limited Run’s cost basis for managing a storefront and selling products has always been outstanding, and the trend continues with the ticketing module. The one-and-only flat fee on ticket sales is 25 cents a ticket.

The team at Limited Run has gone through great lengths to make sure ticket management goes smoothly on the day of the show. They’ve created a Will Cast list simultaneously available for use by multiple people. A manager can email a show-specific code to several helpers working the door, giving each of them access to the Will Call list on their laptops, smartphones, and iPads. The list automatically updates after a guest is checked in, meaning everyone is seeing an up-to-date list.

Other features include an easy search feature that helps to quickly check in fans, local information storage that accommodates temporary losses of network connections, and a guest list function that allows bands to easily add friends to the list. Ticket sellers are also given the option of ending online sales 6 hours, 12 hours, or several days before showtime.

Limited Run outlines the basics of this new feature (and all their recent improvements) on their blog.

Musicians and artists bring children’s stories to musical life with “Mibblio”

SoundCtrl — Tue, 12 Feb 2013 16:05:30 +0000

By Kira Grunenberg

During the years before wireless internet connections and “touch screen technology” were even conceived – at least outside of “The Jetsons” – children had to get both their educational and entertainment fixes through either televised programming or manual means like paper books or tangible board games and puzzles. The most advanced example of the former on that short list would probably be books that came with built-in sound banks on small chips, meant to either narrate books aloud or to insert sound effects for young children, so kids might get a leg up on literacy alongside school lessons.

Now in a society which is overloaded by uni-purpose tech, the purity of children’s resources for fun learning might seem lost. This is where Mibblio comes to the rescue.

An app currently in the middle of a soft launch for iPad but already named a “New and Newsworthy App” by the iTunes App Store, Mibblio is lauded as the “first musically interactive storybook app of its kind,” as described on the app’s official Facebook page. A concept nurtured and developed by a diverse team of four people, Sammy Rubin (Co-Founder, Creative Director), David Leiberman (Co-Founder, Business Director), Matt Blanchard (Technology Director) and Savannah Fletcher (Creative Assistant), Mibblio is a platform app that functions as a library of sorts, meant to house various smaller applications, appropriately named “mibblets.” Each mibblet is a different story-song and currently the Mibblio team has already released a wide array of choices for children to read, with new ones being developed all the time.

The combination of familiarity and fresh learning stimulation that both parents and kids will see in Mibblio, is what makes its potential so limitless. The stories transformed by Mibblio include some timeless pieces that have always been set to a song, so to speak, like “Wheels on the Bus” and “Old MacDonald,” among other classic melodies. The rest are completely unique creations, like “Mille and Her Curling Whirling Hair” in both word and tune, devised from scratch and, each mibblet, classic or unique, is brought together through the talents of highly regarded and imaginative authors, illustrators, and musicians. Two of the musicians featured in some of the mibblet music tracks include Grammy nominated mandolinist Andy Statman (of the Andy Statman Trio) and Grammy winning percussionist, Marty Beller (of They Might Be Giants.) Rubin himself is also a large contributor to many of the arrangements of each mibblet’s score.

Upon download of the app, users are prompted with the ability to scroll through the total list of mibblets and are permitted to download one for free. The rest are in-app purchases. The home screen for all of the mibblets brings up a window that primarily shows the story’s illustrations and framed around that, are an array of colorful buttons and keys and swipe-able mini menus of different musical instrument selections. On the right are options for sets of different percussion, displayed in image form and underneath that is a second swipe-able menu of strings that can be “strummed” or individually “plucked” and play notes from tunings for instruments like the ukulele, guitar, banjo, and harp.

Running along the bottom of the screen are rainbow colored keys that will play the sound of whatever instrument is highlighted directly above and on the left, the instrument buttons shown are designated to the recorded music that plays in the background during the reading of the story. Kids can insert and remove various combinations of any of the instruments playing so that they can hear any and all parts played from start to finish either together or alone. For the music teachers out there: that’s early exposure to orchestration and arrangement for you!

The screen layout is very vibrant and designed well for the exploratory curiosity expected of young children. Leiberman and Rubin designed Mibblio not only to be visually appealing but to be inherently beneficial to kids on a multi-educational level. Exposure to both word and sound together can challenge the two sides of the brain in ways that one or the other alone cannot. Further assurance for parents comes with the founders’ mutual credentials in education and music – showing that Mibblio isn’t meant to be a “digital babysitter.”

Mibblio itself is also a tech and publishing startup company, in addition to being the app’s title. The company’s overall focus is on creating interactive children’s books –not only for iPad but other mobile devices as well.

You can get Mibblio for iPad now for free. In-app purchases for additional mibblets are $2.99.

To learn more about Mibblio and keep informed about new mibblets, company developments or to reach out the Sammy and the rest of the Mibblio team, visit Mibblio.com.

Check out the short intro video below:

App Review: Jukely – Your Personal Concierge for Live Music in NYC

SoundCtrl — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:57:03 +0000

By Steven Zeisler

In New York City, there are shows happening every night all over the city. Some of these shows might happen to be some of you or your friend’s favorite artists. But keeping track of your favorite bands is a logistical nightmare. Who has time to get on each and every website to search for tour dates? Thankfully, Jukely takes care of this.

Jukely is essentially your personal concierge for live music shows. Upon signing up for a free account, Jukely allows you to import other music accounts, including:

Facebook – Sync your and friends’ music listens
Spotify – Sync starred artists and playlists
Rdio – Sync your and friends’ collections
Last.fm – Sync favorites from scrobbies
Soundcloud – Sync liked and followed artists
Hype Machine – Sync loved artists

By plugging in these music services, Jukely will instantly learn your likes. According to their iTunes App store description, “shows are tailored for you, just like a mixtape from a stalker.” By using the GPS in your smartphone, relevant shows happening that night and within the next few days will pop up.

For example, I synced both my Spotify and Facebook accounts. It instantly popped up a Freelance Whales show that was taking place at the Music Hall of Williamsburg the very same night I was writing this article. While I’ve never listened to Freelance Whales, Jukely recommended it to me because it was similar to my favorite artist Passion Pit. Plus, Freelance Whales is considered a favorite with six of my close friends.

When I selected this particular show, I saw more helpful information like:

Ticket price
Start time
Your friends that are into that particular artist
Brief and random track sample
Similar to other favorite artists
Venue details and travel time from current location (with embedded map)
Description of artist
Request to tweet the promoter of the venue in order to put them in the Jukely venue database

There are two ways to get into your favorite show: You can choose to pay within the app by setting up a credit card account or paying at the door of the venue. It’s that easy. Jukely, however, requires your Apple device to be running iOS6 and it’s currently only available for users living in New York City. Let me know what you think!

Björk’s Biophilia App-Album Kickstarter Campaign

SoundCtrl — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:26:03 +0000

By Jason Epstein

Last year, we recognized Björk and Scott Snibbe as FlashFWD honorees for creating Biophilia, their educational, musical app-album. Now, Björk is launching a Kickstarter campaign to get the app released on Android and Windows 8 platforms. The Biophilia educational program is meant to teach children about science and music. It has been used all over the world, especially for students in low-income areas with schools that have had their arts budgets slashed. The claim here is that the best way to bring the project to these people is by having Biophilia reprogrammed for Android and Windows 8.

Biophilia is a multimedia program that includes an album, sub-apps, a live show, and an educational program for children housed under a single app. It explores the link between music, nature, and technology and seems like it would be fun and worthwhile for children, especially those who do not have access to school-funded arts education programs.

Björk has done Biophilia live show residencies all around the world, in cities like New York, Buenos Aires, Oslo, and Manchester with the next show taking place in Paris. The Biophilia Educational Program works to create lesson plans with local school authorities. The interactivity of touch screens is a great tool for teaching students to learn in an intuitive way.

The Biophilia App is said to be an excellent teaching tool for children who have ADHD, curiously showing that they do even better than their peers by allowing them to work at their own pace, teaching themselves. If Biophilia could include a way for a student’s devices to play music by emulating all different instruments, that would really be a boon for those who don’t have access to actual musical instruments or music classes, and of course, for children who have ADHD and want to learn an instrument at their own pace.

This app is innovative both musically and technologically; in fact, its “app album”, is the first of its kind. Each “song” on this “album” has its own interactive interpretation of the app, allowing users to learn about time signatures and chords among other musical topics. One such song is called “Thunderbolt,” and involves the manipulation of lightning bolts to teach how arpeggios (sequenced notes or chords that allow a small amount of time to elapse between each other) work.

My first thought was that this is a non-profit, volunteer-based project, so how in the world is this going to cost 375,000 pounds? First of all, the program has been created already. All it needs to do is be reprogrammed, right? So, what gives Björk?

Well, upon further inspection, this project involves creating an open-source curriculum guide for educators and they do want to be able to pay educational specialists to create these lesson plans. Also, they need to pay a record company that will handle manufacturing, production, and fulfillment of the rewards granted by donating, project managers for coding purposes, and a staff of 6 people over the course of 6 months who will convert Biophilia’s 10-app suite. Admittedly, I’m not a programmer, a manufacturer, or a project manager for Biophilia, but they have also said that it’s “non-profit” and “volunteer-based,” so with which parties involved in this venture does that line begin to blur? £375,000 is $590,925 as conversion rates go today. Nothing to scoff at.

As with every Kickstarter campaign, there are different rewards for different levels of support starting with the app itself for just a £10 pound contribution. They are also offering a documentary DVD, an exclusive Biophilia Kickstarter shirt, a 12” picure disc, a lithographic print, a special Biophilia package with audio CDs (and an Ultimate Edition of that as well, with tuning forks and all sorts of other wacky schwag), a general admission ticket to a Biophilia residency date and a VIP ticket with all sort of perks. Everyone who donates will be kept updated to Biophilia’s progress.

Below is a list of the 10 songs on Biophilia, with its teaching points and the natural element it is tied to.

Thunderbolt - Arpeggios : Lightning
Moon - Sequencers : Tidal patterns
Dark Matter - Musical scales : Dark Matter
Crystalline - Song structure : Crystals
Hollow - Time signatures : DNA
Virus - Interactive music : Viruses
Solstice - Counterpoint : Gravity
Mutual Core - Chords : Tectonic plates
Sacrifice - Notation : Interaction of the sexes
Cosmogony - Harmony : Equilibrium

Check out the Biophilia Educational Program website here.

You can contribute to the Kickstarter campaign here. Check out Björk’s campaign video below:

Meek Mill releases new app via Conduit – Exclusive development details

SoundCtrl — Fri, 25 Jan 2013 17:57:49 +0000

By Kira Grunenberg

A bit of time has passed since reporting a story on our friends over at Conduit last August. Not surprisingly though, since their mobile artist app service is so customizable and the company itself well known in the tech industry, another creative soul has taken advantage of what Conduit has to offer, bringing new tech to the surface now.

Hitting the digital newsstand with a double whammy, widely established rap artist Meek Mill has launched a new app fueled by Conduit’s music app machine, which is designed specifically to promote Meek Mill as an artist, along with his music. The rapper followed up this news with a same day announcement about an upcoming tour of shows around Canada next month. Regarding the latter, according to the information listed through the tour section on Meek Mill’s official Facebook page, there are five dates in five different cities planned, with things kicking off on February 20 in Montréal.

If anything, those fans who reside in Canada may end up being especially high downloaders and frequent users of Meek Mill’s personalized artist app, in order to get up-to-date, and keep up-to-date, with all the latest news and behind-the-scenes nuances of the artist’s life, pre-tour. Aside from the nicely condensed ability to connect with, and peruse through an artist’s digital content, Meek Mill’s Conduit app is also designed with his latest release at the forefront of its features. The album, “Dreams and Nightmares,” released last October, is strongly emphasized and smartly supported within the app. Users are given access to its songs for on-demand streaming, along with official music videos.

The rest of the central elements built into the app include:

Dynamic Newsfeed – Not only do users get Meek Mill’s collective social media updates, but they can also watch for special contests and promotions.

Merchandise Shop – Users can purchase merchandise right from the app, without getting routed to multiple other webpages, ranging from music to apparel and accessories can be purchased through Warner Music Group.

Concert Info – Any news pertaining to Meek Mill’s shows gets sent right to the app to keep fans and ticket buyers informed.

Meekstagram – Think of this as Meek Mill creating his own individual version of Instagram. After choosing existing or taking new photos, the app provides eight special filters stylized to the aesthetic of “Dreams and Nightmares.” Users can put these effects, along with the logo for the album onto their pictures and then upload them to their Instagram accounts for sharing – and like the merchandise store – without leaving the app.

Li-at Karpel Gurwicz, the marketing manager for Conduit Mobile, with whom we’ve spoken before, worked on Meek Mill’s app and provided additional background on this latest artist partnership, as well as some of the thought that went into app development itself:

SoundCtrl: So I know from past research and discussions with Conduit staff, what the premise and unique aspects of its artist app system are and that it didn’t take long for artists to want to jump on board with the idea. Even though it has been stated above that the app complements Meek Mill’s newest album, “Dreams and Nightmares,” was that the singular motivation that sparked the whole process for Meek Mill to work with Conduit’s technology and initiate the app creation process? Had he been aware of Conduit’s app success with other artists before now?

Li-at: While the release of “Dreams and Nightmares” is what prompted Meek Mill to first consider creating his own mobile app, he chose to work with Conduit Mobile because of the existing relationship with Warner Music, and because of the success of previous Conduit Mobile apps – in particular, that of fellow hip-hop artist Waka Flocka, which, following its release, was one of Apple’s most downloaded music apps.

Meek Mill’s official app is a continuation of the Conduit Mobile App Machine partnership with Warner Music. This partnership was launched out of a mutual interest to take artist-audience connectivity beyond concerts, radio stations, and websites, and into the modern mobile world. Meek Mill wanted to develop a mobile app in order to engage with his fans directly and interactively, and the partnership with Conduit Mobile has allowed him to do exactly that.

SoundCtrl: Each artist who makes an app with Conduit is most likely looking to inject as much of themselves and their artistic aesthetic/vision into the finished product as possible. Taking into account the app creation system being as user friendly and streamlined as it is, were there any special insights from Meek Mill that you can recall, that he shared and/or requested be infused into his app, beyond average user parameters?

Li-at: Conduit Mobile’s platform allows users to build apps that are completely customizable – everything having to do with their appearance, features, and functionality – in order to best reflect the brand’s image, look, and feel.

Meek Mill’s official app was the product of a collaborative effort between Meek Mill, the record company, and Conduit Mobile. Through joint brainstorming sessions, we worked together to develop an app that best fits Meek Mill as an artist and also reflects the theme of his new album. By combining Meek Mill’s artistic vision and Conduit Mobile’s technical know-how, we were able to put together some cool and innovative features that encapsulate Meek Mill’s style and brand.

For example, Meek Mill is a big fan of creative photo-sharing technology and he wanted to incorporate an Instagram-type feature into his app to share filtered photos with his audience and fans. Conduit Mobile combined his vision with our unique LiveAlbum feature to create “Meekstagram,” one of the app’s standout features. Meekstagram integrates Meek Mill’s latest album with the native capabilities of mobile apps by allowing users to take pictures with their mobile device cameras from within the app, and then imprint various dream/nightmare-themed filters on the images. The feature then embeds the “Dreams and Nightmares” logo from the album cover inside the image, basically enabling users to create their own album covers. The images can then be uploaded and viewed by others within the app’s feed, for fellow fans (and Meek Mill himself) to enjoy.

When Conduit Mobile developed Meekstagram for the Meek Mill app, we liked it so much that we decided to apply the same idea to our popular LiveAlbum feature. Now, all LiveAlbum users can put filters on pictures taken within the app. In this way, Conduit Mobile is constantly augmenting and evolving the features and app capabilities we offer, benefiting everyone that uses the Conduit Mobile platform.

SoundCtrl: From a technical standpoint, if Meek Mill’s app takes off, gains serious popularity, and sees him and his PR team wanting to heavily embrace it in the longer term, would it be easy and or sensible for him to modify the app in the future? (For per se, a more general use outside of “Dreams and Nightmares” or to fit the theme of a new record?) Or would it make more sense to simply start from scratch?

Li-at: One of the biggest advantages of the Conduit Mobile Platform is that it’s entirely dynamic. Publishers are able to freely update, tweak, and review their apps as their brands and audiences evolve – in fact, we encourage it – and that’s our motto: Go Mobile, Grow Mobile.

Meek Mill decided to launch his app in honor of his new album, but it is named “Meek Mill,” and not “Dreams and Nightmares” for a reason. The official Meek Mill app is a reflection of the artist and his brand, and it was created to have staying power. The app is designed to represent Meek Mill the artist, so he can continue using the app and letting it grow with him and his music career as he continues to build and strengthen his fan base.

SoundCtrl: Just as a quirky last question: Who exactly thought up the term of “Meekstagram?” It has certainly got a signature, and memorable, spin to it…

Li-at: As mentioned above, the idea for Meekstagram was the result of a collaborative effort between Meek Mill and Conduit; it really is our joint creative baby.

You can download the official Meek Mill app for iOS and Android here.

Amazon’s MP3 store ‘optimized’ for iOS

SoundCtrl — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 19:10:27 +0000

by Brian Heater – via engadget

Roughly half a year after the launch of its Cloud Player for iOS, Amazon today announced that it has ‘optimized’ its MP3 store for Apple’s mobile browser. Now iPhone / iPad / iPod touch owners can quickly buy music from the service via the mobile version of Safari.

Read full story at engadget.com

App Review: Radio Cloud Lite

SoundCtrl — Wed, 16 Jan 2013 05:15:11 +0000

By Steven Zeisler

Radio Cloud Lite, developed by Giles Chanot, is a free, interactive radio app for all iOS devices that allows you user access to nearly 200 of the very best, most popular radio stations from the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, and Spain.

Working through a Wi-Fi or 3G / LTE connection, the app constantly streams music from a variety of stations that are set up on a stunning 3D user interface that hovers in front of your eyes amidst – yes, a background of clouds – either in landscape or portrait mode.

As soon as the app fires up, it’s streaming music from a random radio station around the world. With a simple swipe of the finger, you can delegate which station to turn to, and what’s awesome is that the current radio station fades out as another smoothly fades in, without interruption in listening. From classic rock to talk radio to sports broadcasting, the Radio Cloud Lite doesn’t miss a beat. It is intuitive, natural, and just plain smooth. Plus, you can pause and resume any radio station at any time. Radio Cloud Lite even supports multitasking because it can run in the background if you get out of the app.

Upgrade to Radio Cloud for just $0.99, and you have a number of added on features including the ability to:

Filter by country and genre
Uninterrupted listening because of no ads
Airplay to wireless speakers, AppleTV, etc.

There are, however, some crucial features missing. This includes the ability to save your favorite stations and the stations do not provide artist / title information for each song. Hopefully this will eventually change with added improvements.

So if you’re looking for a simple music app to zone out to, Radio Cloud Lite is a good music companion.

Automobile makers show off music tech during CES

SoundCtrl — Tue, 15 Jan 2013 18:50:11 +0000

By Jeff Brunken

This year’s Consumer Electronic show gave us plenty of gadgetry for the music lover. From $1000 ear buds to a home robot with the ability to serenade you while it works: there was ample ear-candy for every audiophile.

Interestingly, however; at a show firmly rooted in home and personal electronics, the proliferation of streaming audio as a component of automobile infotainment proved to be one of the most conspicuous developments. A record number of automobile manufacturers participated in this years’ CES, including Audi, Chrysler, Ford, General Motors, Hyundai, Kia and even Subaru (in their first CES appearance). A common theme for most of these mega-companies was the integration of streaming music into increasingly sophisticated car audio systems.

Clearly, the drivers (pun intended) for this evolution include the maturation of content providers and managers. Aha Radio, which links the content of personal user devices to in-dash systems, and is already seen in some Honda and Porsche installations, announced that it will be integrated into upcoming Ford Sync, (which also features Rhapsody Music Service), Chrysler Uconnect, and Subaru Starlink OEM systems, as well as Alpine car radios.

Chevy exhibited its new Spark and Sonic models equipped with its OEM MyLink Radio and highlighted another personal device app-linked system for streaming content-provider; TuneIn Radio. Chrysler also announced connectivity with iHeartRadio, Slacker, and Pandora.

Some debate exists about the specific origin of internet radio, but the early 1990s are generally regarded as the point where the world began to take the new platform seriously. This when the first internet radio “stations” made their appearance as well as attention-getters like the live streaming of a 1994 Rolling Stones concert. Despite challenges like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and enduring disputes over fees and royalties, internet radio continues to proliferate.

A somewhat ambiguous term; the “internet radio” label has been applied variously to a live stream from a conventional brick-and-mortar station, on-line “pirate radio,” archival sites, or the more familiar internet-only content providers.

A 2012 Pew Research Center report, “The State of the News Media 2012,“ gives insight into the growth of streaming audio:

” as many as 40% of Americans now listen to audio on digital devices “
” that [number] is projected to double by 2015 “
” three out of four people say they like or love satellite audio “.

And, with particular relevance to our post here:

people using cellphones to bring audio into their cars nearly doubled from 2010 to 2011.

Internet radio brings unparalleled choice and access to the discriminating listener. And, as this year’s CES also shows us, it now brings us unprecedented mobility.

Jeff worked as a researcher & technical writer for a Fortune 500 company and has a serious gadget problem. He loves music, but was an instrumentalist long enough to know that the world is a better place if he just listens instead. Tweet at him @jbrunkn

Insider Interview: SoundTracking CEO, Steve Jang talks SoundTracking’s iOS update and aspirations for the future of music and memories

SoundCtrl — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 19:50:25 +0000

By Kira Grunenberg

We’ve begun another bustling year in the world of music and tech; especially so where the two collide. New faces are joining the business and old familiars have pushed forward to new heights. One of those many familiars is the memory-fueled, ‘music postcard’ app, SoundTracking, on which we’ve kept a close watch for quite some time; reporting as recently as this past October.

Steadily working to become an established app rather than a newcomer, SoundTracking has been active since March of 2011 and gained the accolades of many; only a few of which include Apple, for “Best iPhone Music App of 2011,” as well as SoundCtrl’s own 2011 FlashFWD Awards, receiving our “Best in Mobile” title. During the short time span between then and now, SoundTracking has covered a lot of improvement ground, making several moves to expand access and tighten its services with numerous updates. The newest of these changes rolled out yesterday for the iOS; including modifications that span from integral performance improvements to game changing feature additions and a freshly designed user interface that alters users’ frontline experiences with the app.

SoundTracking has touched upon a range of socialization elements that round out the app well as both an organizer and memory-maker. Here is a general run down of the new features:

Embracing of the photos and visual memories that accompany the songs in people’s lives: New profile and post personalization via Like/Love emoticons and inclusion of customized cover images and image-focused content feeds.
Emphasis on the value of connecting with other music lovers: This is done in the app with tagging and outside of the app by seeing who and what is “Trending Nearby.”
Widened ability to share: Twitter Card integration lets Twitter users see and hear the musical moments users post, embedded in the tweets themselves and with Facebook, songs posted can be viewed and liked by others.
Faster discovery: Songs are streamlined to users faster in SoundTracking’s “Search” and users are better streamlined to each other, through instant “Fan Recommendation,” pointing out individuals who like a user’s favorite songs.

Steve Jang, CEO of Schematic Labs, the company that produced SoundTracking, offered to share some of his thoughts about the app’s latest transformation and ideas for what he hopes the business can come to achieve going forward.

SoundCtrl: This newest iOS incarnation seems to show the app having integrated relatable forms of appealing features from many of the web’s general social media players: Artist verification badges, cover images and friend tagging, just to name a few. Do you feel this sets you truly apart in the app market, having a “bit of everybody” to offer –particularly when you are pushed as a music-centric service?

Steve Jang: We observed people using SoundTracking in different ways over the last year. Some of the most prevalent actions we saw were [users] trying to tag people in their music moments, to either dedicate songs or say, “I’m listening to this song with X and Y.” Some other behavior and feedback [we observed] was the popularity of following the musical tastes of higher-profile users such as DJs, bands and hip-hop artists using SoundTracking, [as well as] the desire to have a more customizable and personalized music identity and profile.

We want to help people naturally and authentically create their music timeline on SoundTracking as they serendipitously discover and listen to music and create a music identity for themselves. As with any online social identity, visual representation, like a profile avatar or a cover image/theme, is important, just like an album cover is important to a band in their personal expression to fans. One thing that we’ve implemented in our new Music Profiles is a personal music timeline and two filtered feeds showing your most popular music moments and your favorite music moments shared by other people. All of this gives a more holistic and implicit way of understanding more about someone and getting a sense of their music personality.

Rather than worrying about what other apps are doing, we really tried to watch organic behavior among our music fan community and develop easier, more fun and powerful ways to let them share, discover and interact with each other. It’s pretty common to hear people say that “music is inherently social” but there is a lot of truth to that and our goal is to provide an exciting music community designed for authentic expression and discovery.

SoundCtrl: Since SoundTracking has such a multi-faceted interface, is that one of the reasons you have also decided to alter its primary design to one of a more visual and expressive nature –to keep with this trend in the app? After all, music at its core is an auditory experience –more so at least than a visual one.

Jang: We moved in a more visual direction after studying how our community was actually using the service. People were sharing personal photos, album covers, and captions that expressed that specific music moment and why it was important. We wanted to give people an easy and aesthetically beautiful way to share and browse music moments inside of SoundTracking. Audio is at the core of music but the other elements in a SoundTracking post such as a photo, user caption and location add more context and meaning to why the song was shared by that person. Music moments are made up of songs, emotions, people, and places. By having the ability to include a photo to serve as sort of an “album cover” and play button to someone’s song gives people a more expressive way to share emotions and activities through a song, as opposed to a cookie-cutter chrome player with little other information or media attached.

SoundCtrl: Would you ever consider partnering with more non-music based businesses for cross promotional purposes, given the potential for widespread and frequent use of the new “Trending Nearby” feature? Places where people listen to music sometimes have other amenities of life around (e.g. restaurants or shops) and with Foursquare already incorporated, these kinds of places could push things like nearby concerts, as well as themselves, to enhance a person’s memory making experience.

Jang: We’ve seen some local businesses start using the app and sharing what music they are playing inside their hotel, bar, store, or cafe. Music curation is storytelling through songs. Businesses that want to either communicate their tastes or certain ethos to customers can certainly share a [particular] personality to the world and tell a unique story to people.

Over half of our users share their exact venue location, neighborhood or city with every music moment. Moving forward, there’s a real opportunity to offer people real-time insights into which bars, stores and clubs play music they like. I often remember the music that a retail store will play and either appreciate or be turned off by what they’ve got on their speakers.

Local entertainment has a real opportunity to reach people through this type of data and social interaction as well. Apps like Foursquare and WillCall have done a great job of telling people where their friends are and what shows they are going to. [In] WillCall’s case, [this means] letting [users] see a curated feed of shows for which they can buy tickets. SoundTracking can give great signal data to services like these and let people receive higher quality recommendations and offers based upon musical taste and location.

Also interesting to us is the mapping of music trends and seeing how tastes change and differ between not only cities, but even neighborhoods. We recently released a top songs and artists list of 2012 by San Francisco, LA, and New York. There were key differences in these city lists. Another difference you can see is the difference in music between neighborhoods like the East Village and Upper East Side in NY or The Mission District and Marina in San Francisco. It would be great one day, to walk down a street and listen to a soundtrack of the combined music of all the people that have lived, worked and hung out there and see the pictures, places and emotions that have taken place.

SoundCtrl: That would really be great –almost like having a musical history book! We’ll see how things come to unfold. All of us at SoundCtrl wish you continued success!

7 Music Production Apps for Android

SoundCtrl — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 16:23:54 +0000

By Mark Spacey

With Android now a hugely popular operating system with a high level of market penetration, a large number of apps have appeared claiming to cater for users who want to make music on their tablet or mobile device. As ever, some are better than others, so check out seven of the best available below.

niko twenty ReLoop Loop Sequencer

With its intuitive drag and drop interface, this is a fantastic and accessible loop sequencer. You can preview your loop in real time to give you a sneak preview of how your creation is coming along. Once complete, you can export the finished product as a .wav file. Disappointingly, you can only use 3 different effects per track and the quality of the effects available could be a little higher.

PocketBand Lite

This is a fantastic app and with a bit of practice, it allows you to craft tracks and samples which could easily be mistaken for professional creations. You are given the power to mix drums, synths, and audio recordings plus an effects suite is available. As it operates in the cloud, be sure that you are connected to Wi-Fi if possible or have a sturdy mobile data connection (and data plan).

Samalyse TapeMachine Recorder

A basic yet very useful recording app, which allows you to easily capture those moments of inspiration, when you are out and about (or lounging on your couch at home). Once you have your recording down, a full range of editing tools are available such as tempo adjustment, looping options, and so on. It would be nice to see Bluetooth microphone functionality included in a future update.

NodeBeat

This is a great little app which allows users to create beats and songs by placing and manipulating nodes (i.e. lines and dots) via an easy to use visual interface. Once your creation is complete, you can save it as an audio file and share it as you wish. No knowledge of music theory is required so don’t be afraid to give it a go. A sleep mode would be a useful addition so that the display doesn’t zap your battery power when you’re listening rather than creating.

Spectral – Images Into Sound

Here’s something a bit different: an app that converts a photo into a spectrogram (that’s a visual representation of music for the non-nerds amongst us!) by combining and mapping it with the chosen track or sample. Serious artists are likely to be intrigued by the possibilities of combining their music with photography and other artwork. Casual users can have a lot of fun seeing how photos of their friends are transformed by their favorite music tracks!

Ethereal Dialpad

This spacey app is a touch sensitive synthesizer which allows users to create music by tracing patterns on their device screen. You can certainly use it as a tool for genuine music making but it also works wonderfully as a relaxing meditation tool! Additional Dialpad plug-ins are available to keep the experience original and inspiring. An onboard loop and record function would really boost its serious music making credentials.

Niko Twenty Electrum Drum Machine/Sampler

Interface-wise this app holds true to the design principles of the original sequencers in the 1980s and this is no bad thing. A powerful drum machine lies within and seamless Soundcloud integration makes sharing your creations effortless. Plug-ins based on classic Roland drum machines are included to keep the 80s vibe well and truly alive. As a serious music making tool that is used by industry professionals, it will require some investment of time to get satisfying results.

Mark works as a music sample producer at Dance Midi Samples, After producing many music sample packs, Mark now shares is years of experience with others through guides and tutorials while offering free midi samples for the next generation of producers.

App Review: The Orchestra – Classical Music Immersion and Rediscovery

SoundCtrl — Thu, 03 Jan 2013 19:39:03 +0000

By Carolyn Heneghan

If you’re a classical music lover looking for new ways to be immersed in the works of your favorite composers, The Orchestra app provides a unique and enthralling experience that dives into the heart of orchestral performances. Featuring the London Philharmonia Orchestra, this app from Touch Press envelops you with the sounds, visuals, and commentary that encircle these rich and complex pieces of music.

With the aid of technology like the iPad and interactive apps, a whole new world of classical music is emerging. The pieces themselves, their scores, video recordings, commentary from musicians, and conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen, and an interactive guide to the orchestra’s instruments synchronize and synthesize in one extraordinary app. This application is so jam-packed with information that you can spend hours studying any one of the eight included pieces.

Whether you have a new, passing, or die-hard passion for the symphonic music, this app has a wealth of information to deepen your level of interest. Whether you like music trivia, watching musicians in action, or following along with the music, The Orchestra has a little bit of everything to keep you thoroughly entertained.

Multimedia presentation – Audio + Video

From the home screen you are instantly introduced to bits of the featured works and the stunning photography and videography that bring this app to life. You can then choose any one of the eight works available on the app:

Haydn: Symphony No. 6 (1761)
Beethoven: Symphony No. 5 (1808)
Berlioz: Symphonie fantastique (1830)
Debussy: Prélude à l’après midi d’un faune (1894)
Mahler: Symphony No. 6 (1906)
Stravinsky: The Firebird (1910)
Lutoslawski: Concerto for Orchestra (1954)
Salonen: Violin Concerto (2009)

While the music is playing, there are three screens of different video shots capturing the orchestra performing the piece in sync with the music. The videos are shot from multiple angles and feature both the conductor and the musicians in a series of group shots and close-ups.

In the Debussy piece, for example, during a flute soli, one angle will feature the soloists, another the conductor, and the other different clips of various groups and single musicians as they play. The videos serve to highlight both individual and sectional performances, giving the user a bird’s eye view into the orchestral action behind the music—a perspective not often experienced even at live concerts.

Follow Along with the Score

The app also allows you to follow along with the piece’s score in several different ways. As the orchestra performs, the rolling score for the piece will be displayed along the bottom of the screen. You can choose between seeing the full score with all the instruments at once or the curated score, which only includes the instruments playing in that particular section of the song.

You can also toggle between seeing the notes in a larger or smaller form; this larger format could potentially help musicians if they wanted to learn how to play the piece along with the orchestra. Another mode is a simpler version that looks something like Garage band and other similar programs and shows the music as elongated bars rather than specific notes.

In addition to the scrolling scores, there is also a beatmap at the top of the screen that displays the different instrument sections or the orchestra as multicolored dots. As they perform the song, the particular instruments that are playing will light up in time with the beats of the music to provide insight into how the orchestra and the music work together.

Song Exploration and Extra Tidbits from the Commentaries

The Orchestra also includes a comprehensive log of commentaries for each of the app’s eight songs. You can choose between conductor Esa-Pekka Salonen’s thoughts and the musicians’, and you can also decide between hearing the commentaries aloud or reading them as subtitles onscreen as the song plays. You can also stop the music entirely to hear more commentary alone by selecting the speaker’s picture.

These commentaries provide an even more in-depth look into the piece’s music performance. For example, in Salonen’s commentary for Debussy’s “Prelude à Après-midi d’un Faune,” he says, “It is an aimless, quivering melody, going nowhere in particular. The harmony is ambiguous. Themes in this short score are not developed. Instruments are allowed a mildly shocking degree of freedom.” He then touches on the history of the piece and its premiere, during which he postures that “modern music could be said to have been born.”

The commentaries themselves often mimic the richness and beauty of the music itself. The immersion and understanding of these pieces of music due to each element of song interaction make this app essential for classical music lovers and purely addictive for music lovers of all stripes. You could spend hours exploring any one piece and learning more than you ever thought possible about the physical, lyrical, and historical efforts that go into creating these masterpieces.

And Finally, Hear and Play the Instruments Yourself

From the homepage of the app, instead of selecting a specific work, you can select the instrument photo to bring up an entirely different side of the app. This will bring up pictures of all the instruments in the Philharmonia, which you can then click on for more information. There will be an essay accompanied by a “Did You Know?” factoid. You can double-click the instrument photo itself to take a closer look.

The Showcase section provides clips of the songs included in the app that feature that particular instrument. You can also see information about the instrument’s note range, frequency range, and size.

One of the most interesting parts of these instrument pages is the commentary from the musicians themselves about what it’s like to play their instrument of choice. And best of all, you can play the instrument itself either with a keyboard or button with the photo of, say, a particular cymbal. Strike the button or keyboard key, and you’ll hear the instrument play that note or sound.

With such a wealth of information, this app is perfect for all music lovers, especially fans of classical music and those yearning to learn more. And there’s more music to come with future updates. For example, soon five classic and complete Beethoven performances will be available for comparison.

The app is available for download for iPad (2^nd-4^th generation and mini) from the iTunes store for $13.99.

Top 5 Mobile Music Recording Apps and Devices of 2012

SoundCtrl — Fri, 28 Dec 2012 16:43:38 +0000

By Keith Nelson Jr

MusixCube

In a move as simple as “taking the music producer away from the computer and allowing them to take back the music into their own hands” Hauke Scholz turned the Rubix Cube into a controller for recording software and MIDI players. MusixCube allows users to toggle through “layers” (Sampler, Options, Group, Levels, and FX) with a flip, twist to control effects, and even the glide of a finger on the cube’s surface to adjust mix and volume. The MusixCube is fully compatible with a bevvy of popular DAW software, including Reason, Logic, Pro Tools and Abelton Live. With the addition of Bluetooth-enabled collaborative editing via multiple MusixCube in close proximity of each other, Scholz’s thesis project can evolve into a major player in the mobile music recording industry.

Read our write-up of MusixCube

MOTU Microbook II

A shining beacon in the 2012 Do-It-Yourself music recording movement was MOTU’s Microbook II, a USB 2.0-powered portable audio interface designed for personal recording. The developer of computer-based audio/video production hardware and software equip the Microbook II with an XLR cable input, line input and two stereo inputs allowing for four-track simultaneous recording. Its one pound metal chassis gives it a mixture of durability and portability, essential for mobile recording setups. With on-screen Microbook II controller software, CueMix FX(Windows/Mac OS X) and MOTU’s own DAW software, AudioDesk (Mac) included, musicians can take the heart of a recording session anywhere they travel.

Read our write-up of the MOTU Microbook II

Audiobus

This year, 87% of the population had a mobile phone (roughly 5.9 billion) with 48% of those people using their phone for music (roughly 2.9 billion people). The subsequent proliferation of mobile recording apps in the hundreds was blessed with Audiobus, a tool-based app which allows those apps to communicate with one another. Independent software development company, A Tasty Pixel and digital instrumental inventors Audanika’s collaboration enables users to send audio(i.e. synth loop) to another app to filter (i.e. reverb on instruments) and record in another, simultaneously. The app is available for $9.99 at the App Store only, with a bevvy of its supported app variations updated on Audiobus’ tumblr.

Read our write-up of Audiobus

BandLab

Few mobile recording hardware/software exhibited as much game-changing potential as JamHub’s Kickstarter project BandLab, the first digital audio workstation based in a cloud network. Built musician collaboration, BandLab allows users to upload multitrack sessions (or begin new ones) to their personal BandLab cloud account and proceed to modify the session from any smartphone, tablet and computer. BandLab allows users to connect others to their session (such as bandmates) to add comments, additional mixes and whatever their hearts desires (and account privileges allow) while an Instant Notification feature gives all connected an email, text and/or tweet of a session’s update. With five separate free and paid memberships (Friend, Player, Musician, Writer, Producer) BandLab could reduce CPU usage, facilitate long distance music collaborations and further the burgeoning mobile music recording movement of 2012.

Read our write-up of BandLab

iMPC

Longtime MPC manufacturer, AKAI Professional, and software studio, Retronyms, deliver an app which exceeds that of a mere port. The iMPC takes the best of its hardware origin (quick response drum pads, intuitive design, vast bank of sounds) and adds modern day improvements (social media integration, in-app Soundcloud community, digital turntable).

Korg’s WIST (Wireless Sync Start Technology) is its pivotal enhancement. enabling the iMPC to share sounds and edit wirelessly with other iPads running WIST-compatible apps. For a mere $6.99 at the App Store, a robust set of features and uncanny similarities to its more expensive counterparts, the iMPC is leaps and bounds ahead of the mobile music recording curb.

Read our write-up of iMPC

AKAI brings their MPC series to the iPad with their iMPC app

SoundCtrl — Thu, 27 Dec 2012 17:20:53 +0000

By Keith Nelson Jr.

Alabama rock group One Like Son recorded an entire album with an iPhone a year after Kanye West performed at the MTV Video Music Awards with just an AKAI Pro MPC drum machine sampler (and twirling ballerinas). The iMPC app is the latest move of digitizing tradition with one of the most recognizable and celebrated devices in hip-hop, the AKAI Pro MPC, finding its way onto the highest selling tablet, the iPad. MPC manufacturers, AKAI Professional and the creators of the Tabletop virtual studio, Retronyms, bring over 130 editable programs and sequences along with more than 1,2000 samples and more to bolster the iMPC.

All the classic components of the AKAI Professionals’ lauded MPC series are on full display in the iMPC. The interface, with the grey beat pads, sequence toggling wheel, note variation slider, and traditional buttons, is a splitting image of the iconic MPC design. The classic AKAI Professional sound library and built-in effects (delay, bit crusher, master compressor/limiter) accompany Live Sequence queueing as a few familiar features from the MPC hardware iteration. To keep it all in the family, the iMPC even allows users to export tracks to the MPC software for them to be used on the MPC Studio and MPC Renaissance.

Rather than simply create an iPad software port of the MPC, AKAI Professionals and Retronyms took advantage of the new interface to expand on the functionality of the MPC.. Sample New Sound feature allows users to record sounds from the iPad built-in mic and line input to be imported into the MPC. An in-app digital turntable combines with Sample New Sound to deliver users with precise sampling for any song in their iTunes library. The support for Korg’s WIST (Wireless Sync Start Technology) protocol broadens the iMPC’s scope further by enabling iMPC to wirelessly collaborating across iPads with other WIST-compatible apps.

A social component is integrated into the iMPC experience with its direct connection to the SoundCloud community via CloudSeeder. Users can upload their newest iMPC creation onto a shared Soundcloud community amongst iMPC users, comment on others and/or simply peruse the inventory of beats all from the iMPC app client. Additional connection to Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr are offered. AKAI Professional’s partnership with Retronyms also yields such connectivity perks with Retronyms’ Tabletop as routing effects to iMPC and resampling Tabletop devices.

The iMPC is currently available at the iTunes App Store for $6.99.

Stay productive, people.