The ever-expanding ‘record label etc.’ out of New York wanders further into the world of multimedia with a mobile music exploration tool.

Ghostly is a record label, an agency, a design house, a clothing designer, an online store, a publishing company, and more. They have always picked up new technologies quickly and pushed to remain innovative in a fast-paced industry. It is not a huge surprise, then, that they have quite a nifty mobile app for the iPhone and iPod. It is only surprising that it took me so long to find it, but the result is: I love it. And so, I want to share it with the Music Jobs world…

Being a record label since 1999, Ghostly has a fair catalogue to browse and discover, and the app is easy to navigate and fun to use. With ‘Discovery’, you get a free mood-triggered music discovery app that focuses on the roster of the Ghostly artists, where the seven colors of the natural spectrum correspond to musical moods.

The official ‘how to’ video is below. as they explain; “using mood-color information from the MOOD slider along with the values from the DIGITAL/ORGANIC and FASTER/SLOWER sliders, Discovery creates a playlist of songs that reflect exactly how you’re feeling, right now.”

Play with the web version here, and download the mobile version from iTunes here (free).
by Lee Jarvis.

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I’ve personally used Propellerhead’s Reason for several years now, and love it. The software is well priced, the interface is intuitive, and the overall sound is pretty darn good. Maybe not equal to the final polishing of Pro Tools, but for a fraction of the cost. And you can always choose to an engineer to master your music at a professional studio with nice outboard gear

The big news in this upgrade, is that they have now added the audio recording and editing features previously available as Record v1.5 . Also in the new version, several creative effects including; the ‘Pulveriser‘, a bit-crushing effect with compression and distortion; ‘The Echo‘, an echo with modern delay and analog tape echo emulation; and the ‘Alligator‘, a three band pattern gate. Combining those elements with it’s already impressive built in sound modules, effects and processors means one thing… watch out Ableton.

From the official Propellerhead press release, “With version 6 Reason reclaims the spotlight. Combining all the features from Record, version 6 adds audio recording and editing into Reason, along with Propellerhead’s acclaimed mixing console with masterfully modeled EQ and dynamics on every channel, multiple parallel racks, all the effects you know and love plus new ones to fall in love with, and much more of what you’ve always wanted in Reason.”

Reason 6 will retail for $449, upgrades from versions 1-5 of Reason will cost $169, and this will all be released on September 30th, 2011. For more information on Reason 6, plus other products and upgrade options, check out http://www.propellerheads.se/products/

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Lee Jarvis.

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Every now and then, there is a new gadget that pushes the envelope of music performance. Technology has enhanced the way in which people can create and produce sounds many times, and this digital age has seen some pretty inventive ideas surface.

Musician Onyx Ashanti has a vision of the ‘future of music’, “beatjazz“. He uses two handheld accelerometers, which alter the sound with predetermined effects based on his hand gestures, along with a mouthpiece for input and an iPhone for display. He calls upon his live looping and jazz improvisation skills in the process of constructing his music, and gives a great visual performance that is part jamming, part dance, and part geek out. This video was recorded at one of the amazing TEDTalks auditions, and is a joy to watch and listen to. (more: onyx-ashanti.com)

A couple of years ago Yamaha launched the Tenori-on, a bizarre digital instrument that consists of a 16×16 grid of buttons, each triggering different sounds on different beats, creating a layered loop effect. These loops are then moulded and manipulated ‘on the fly’, whilst the buttons flash and light up, giving a visual representation of the music. Endless voices or samples can be selected, and BPM can be input via MIDI, allowing DJs and performers to work a Tenori-on into their live show in perfect sync, as artists such as Little Boots and Four-Tet have been experimenting with. (more: global.yamaha.com/tenori-on)

First conceived in 2003, Reactable has still not quite filtered down into a regular sight in the club and live event scene, but is one of the craziest pieces of music technology I’ve ever come across. Using a light table and various cuboid ‘instruments’ or effects to generate and manipulate sounds, Reactable allows infinite exploration, as each of the cuboids can be combined many times to distort and create new sounds. The experimental nature of the machine lends itself well to wild, quirky electronic music, and in addition to a few touring house and techno DJs using the technology, Icelandic superstar Bjork also took one on tour for 80 gigs over 18 months of the Volta tour. There are a few videos of Reactable in ‘performance mode’, but the concept is so unique (and bizarre?), that I thought I would start with the initial basic demo, and you can move on from there yourselves. (more: reactable.com)

These inventions may never become everyday music-making pieces, or they may signal the future of music for everyone from festival headliners to bedroom producers. Either way, it is still an exciting time in music creation, and being aware of the evolution of music is an important part of being involved.

by Lee Jarvis.

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Last year I attended the University of Chicago MET Summit, and enjoyed not only the music panels, but all the technology discussions. Learning about other industries fuels your ideas for the music business, and crossover opportunities are everywhere in modern media. Technology has ignited, developed, bombarded and slaughtered the music industry several times over, and the current state is an exciting time to be involved in. You only have to look at the discussions happening at MIDEM to know that mobile device apps and video games are as much a part of the business as record sales and drainpipe jeans.

And so, this year I’m heading to Techvision 2010 at The University of Chicago Booth School of Business in Hyde Park, Chicago. Friday 26th February seeks to “drive home the game changing impact of technology to business minds across the industry and functional focus areas”. With panels such as Cloud Computing and Mobile Technology, not to mention a keynote from Senior VP at Warner Bros. Janet Pucino, appealing most to a music tech / music industry bod, I expect to hear and share ideas expecting to impact our work and passions over the next year. I know that UofC will provide a great forward-thinking entrepreneur aspect on top of the usual techy geekdom, and networking with some bright minds is always appealing.

If you are interested in attending also, registration details can be found here.

Lee Jarvis.

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