Alternatives to Soundcloud

A recent announcement heralded the news that after a supposed 5 years of negotiations, the PRS for Music in the UK (Performing Rights Society, collect revenues and royalties for artists) are to open legal action against Soundcloud for lack of paid revenues and licenses. Initially I was incredulous at the entire news, especially that Soundcloud had stuck to a single defence for over five years and my first thoughts contemplated the death of the service as it buckles under the weight of a lawsuit - something made more poignant as I have only just paid for another year's subscription. 

NB: Apparently PRS' official name is "PRS for Music", but it is rarely referred to as this in the news. In this article, PRS and PRS for Music refer to the same organisation.

Hack-a-brute!

One of the more interesting things about newer style synthesisers is that their creators sometimes go out of their way to make their products slightly more tweakable and editable for the masses to enjoy. Korg are an excellent example of this, as they are well known for going the extra mile on their recent analogue gear (Monotrons and Volcas) to label the PCBs with convenient solder points to easily add further functions.

As an owner of both the MiniBrute and MicroBrute, in part due to the involvement of Grenoble's Yves Usson in the design as well as the sounds they can make, I am pleased to see that he has convinced Arturia to release PDFs of the internal schematics and is currently curating a list of hacks, modifications and alterations on his Hack a Brute website.

Free classical music

Sundays are all about lounging around, so to make yourself seem a little more urbane and intelligent whilst you read Reddit or eat breakfast, why not enjoy some excellent classical music for free? 

Starts off with a great rendition of Beethoven's Fifth and continues in great fashion, with performances of popular classical music that you should know by now. Did I mention that it was free?

Fire up your Google Play account and point it to:

https://play.google.com/store/music/album/Various_Artists_The_Great_Classical_Works?id=Bjpaub4gem5372t2j4uy2oqdike&hl=en_GB

Android Synthesisers

A few months ago I took a look at mobile music apps on iOS and Android and lamented that high latency on Android’s operating system (at least at the time of writing) was to blame for the lack of decent music apps on the app store. However, the Heat Synthesiser did pave the way forward in this regard and highlighted that with a bit of programming know-how, it is possible to play a decent Android software synthesizer.

It’s now Summer 2013 and the Google Play store has been steadily building up a number of music apps for download, both free and paid-for. In this post, I’m going to cover a few of the free options that are available and will highlight some of the best (and worst) the platform currently has to offer.

Free Moog is here!

A quick reminder to everyone to go and download your free copy of Arturia's Minimoog V Original VST as part of the World Music Day celebrations. To download, head to the following site right now:

http://www.arturia.com/evolution/en/products/minimoogv/minimoogv-original.html

Free Moog!

Just found something too good to believe and wanted to share the news that Arturia will be giving away a cut down version of their Minimoog V VST. Amazing stuff, I cannot wait to have a listen to this. The only catch is that it will only be on June 21st 2012, so set your watches and alarms, people!

For more details you can head to:

http://www.arturia.com/evolution/en/products/minimoogv/minimoogv-original.html