Notational Alternatives: Beyond Finale and Sibelius. “Finale or Sibelius?” Is a question that composers love to ask other composers. It’s often taken as a given that if you write music professionally, you’re already using one of these popular notation software packages. This may be about to change—with the news of Sibelius’s development team being unceremoniously dumped by Avid and subsequently scooped up by Steinberg, we may have a third variable to add to that equation. ThinkMusic, another newcomer, promises an iPad app in the near future, but has already generated controversy for seeming to use Sibelius in its video mockup. In the meantime, there are a variety of other, lesser-known options for notation software already lurking out there.
None of them may have the same clout with professionals as Sibelius and Finale—yet—but many are gaining ground. MuseScore: Open Source Upstart MuseScore started out in 2002 as a spinoff of MusE, an open source sequencer created by German developer and musician Werner Schweer. The Future of Notation? A Sound System as Resonant a Concert Hall - Tool Kit. Audiotool for Chrome. The Listening Machine.
What’s the Difference Between All These Audio Formats, and Which One Should I Use? This Is the Oldest Record In History—Scanned and Recreated From a Photo. First-Ever Mixer and Crossfader Dates Back Over a Century. Listen to Music That Evolved From Random Noise. On The Horizon: Multi-Dimensional Audio. [In our On The Horizon series, we look at new and upcoming technologies that you might not see for a while (if at all) but are worth keeping an eye on.] When you watch a movie or listen to music, a lot of work has gone into mixing the various audio elements together into “channels” for a specific number and location of speakers. And for each situation—whether it be two channels (stereo), 5.1 channels (five speakers and a subwoofer), or 7.1 channels (seven speakers and a subwoofer)—a new mix must be created.
SRS Labs thinks that labor-intensive process is so yesterday, and is looking to Multi-Dimensional Audio (MDA) as the future of audio creation—and enjoyment. The idea behind MDA is switching from a channel-based mentality to an object-based one. As SRS describes it: In the real world, sound sources emit from objects in three dimensional space and the sound that we perceive does not only come from the originating source. I also got to experience an interactive use of MDA. Why it’s cool. Does "Mastered for iTunes" matter to music? Ars puts it to the test. Apple's push to increase the quality of songs distributed via iTunes has been formally realized in the company's Mastered for iTunes program—but does it really make music sound better? After our original report on the Mastered for iTunes program, some readers were skeptical that anything could be done to make a compressed AAC file sound comparable to uncompressed, 16-bit 44.1kHz CD standard audio.
Others believed users should have access to the original 24-bit 96kHz files created in the studio for the best sound. Finally, some readers suggested that few people can actually tell the difference between iTunes Plus tracks and CD audio, so why bother making any effort to improve iTunes quality? British recording engineer Ian Shepherd called the entire process of specially mastering audio files for iTunes to sound more like the CD version simple "BS. " "This is where I believe the real slight-of-hand is being pulled," Shepherd told CE Pro. Let's examine the basic aspects of digitized audio.
Pd Documentation. Software by Miller Puckette. Max/MSP. Max MSP Tutorial 06a4: Frequency Modulation [1] Can music learn from the slow-food movement? - Art in Crisis. This past summer, Zenph Sound Innovations had a problem. Zenph is a North Carolina-based company specializing in computer-generated “re-performances” of classic recordings with astounding results. But Zenph’s latest project — “The Spanish Masters,” featuring renowned cellist Zuill Bailey and soprano Isabel Bayrakdarian accompanying recreations of century-old piano-playing — was coming in over budget.
That’s when Zenph’s management took a cue from the project’s setting, Manifold Recording Studio, which was designed with both old-school live performance and new-school open-source philosophy in mind. Manifold co-owner Michael Tiemann suggested that Zenph go the crowd-funding route to raise the money needed. “I proposed that we offset the costs by holding a recording salon,” Tiemann says.
Six people came in to watch, and each paid $250 for the privilege. The studio’s technical gear is all state-of-the art, of course. Lucier Class Notebook. This spring (2011) Alvin Lucier is retiring from Wesleyan University after 41 years of teaching. I recently unearthed from my mother's attic my notebook from his "Introduction to Electronic Music", which I took my freshman year.
On the occasion of his combined 80th birthday and retirement party I gave it to him. The childish handwriting and misspellings (note Lucier's name on the first page), doodles, the scribbled ideas for experiments of my own, pithy observations and self-aggrandizing pronouncements are squirm-inducing reminders that I was only 18 years old, in an epoch characterized by extreme self-indulgence. Posting it online has the recklessness of publishing a diary.
You might want to start here with this short essay I wrote about my first encounter with Lucier, my experience in the course, and my reactions to re-reading the notebook after almost 40 years. Some explanations: The right hand pages of the notebook contain my class notes. Adventures in 3D Sound! Edgar Choueiri knows how things work; he’s a rocket scientist — officially, the Director of Princeton University's Electric Propulsion and Plasma Dynamics Laboratory. If NASA ever sends a person to Mars, Choueiri’s research probably will have played a role. But Kurt Andersen visited his lab recently to get a taste of the future right now. Choueiri’s hobby is acoustics. He has developed a way to render sound in three dimensions, and given Studio 360 listeners an exclusive first listen of his 3D audio technology. Unlike surround sound and other elaborate hardwiring, his breakthrough consists of a software algorithm applied to sound files that allows stereo playback to sound much more real and lifelike.
The 3D audio in the show segment above is calibrated for stereo speakers only so it won't work on headphones. Try out the clips below, in which Choueiri demonstrates the sound of water in 3D. 3D Audio Demonstration for Speakers 3D Audio Demonstration for Headphones So how does it work? Choosing a Mixer for Your Home Studio. Page 1 2 3 4 by Tweak Tweak: This is the back of a Mackie 1604VLZ3 a known favorite in many home studios.
Understanding the back of your potential mixer is more important than the front. By the end of this article you will know what all those ins and outs do. On the next four pages we will cover a lot of mixers and approaches to building your studio. My goal is when you are done reading this article, you will have a really good understanding of mixers, enough to make an intelligent decision on what you need. If not, this article links to live discussion going on at studio-central on the topic of mixers. Understanding mixers is important. What does a Mixer actually do? A mixer or mixing console or mixing board all refer to the same thing: a device that allows you to balance, position, effect and equalize its different audio channels into a good sounding sonic image that we call a mix.
Those starting a studio need to decide early on what is going to be the center of the studio. Sure you can.