Orba is a digital instrument from Artiphone that fits in your hand. It combines a synth, looper, speaker, headphone jack, MIDI controller, and Bluetooth/USB connectivity to pair with its companion app. After raising over US$1.5 million on Kickstarter it’s available to purchase around the world for US$99. As a connected device, Orba is always getting better and smarter with new features and capabilities. Since it first shipped, Artiphon has introduced new sound packs, additional features and improvements, and added Android USB connectivity.
Logic Pro X Updates – TMO Daily Observations 2020-05-14
Charlotte Henry and Dave Hamilton join host Kelly Guimont to discuss updates to Logic Pro X and what those improvements mean to musicians.
New Listening Habits, Apple TV+ on Apple TV Apps – TMO Daily Observations 2020-04-06
Dave Hamilton and Charlotte Henry join host Kelly Guimont to discuss the trends in listening habits in the new age, and Apple’s (questionable) decisions about Apple TV+ within the Apple TV app.
Musician and Programmer John Nastos - TMO BGM Interview
John Nastos is a multi-instrumentalist, music composer and improvisor, saxophonist, an iOS app developer, book author and is currently on faculty at Portland State University as a Jazz Saxophone Instructor.
John is one of those special people who is an accomplished jazz musician, iOS developer and author. He tells a fascinating story about how he got started as a jazz musician and the people who mentored him. Along the way, he also fondly adopted the Mac, and that stood him well when it came time to develop some very popular, technical music apps that had never existed before. As an instructor, John teaches his students the principles behind music improvisation. His first book, The Mechanism lays out those core concepts. John is a gifted speaker and educator, so don’t miss this show.
iTunes is Dead, But Apple Still Wants You to Manage Subscriptions Through Music
Apple made a huge fuss about bringing about the end of iTunes, but app subscriptions are still managed in Apple Music.
WWDC 2019: The End of iTunes
WWDC confirmed that iTunes will be no more in macOS Catalina. It will be replaced by three new apps – Music, TV, and Podcasts.
UK Only Behind the Mac Music Page Live
Apple launched ‘Behind the Music’, a UK-only page on its website outlining how its products help users compose, record, and mix music.
A Thorny Problem: When an AI Composes Music
The Verge writes about legal issues when an AI composes music.
The word “human” does not appear at all in US copyright law, and there’s not much existing litigation around the word’s absence. This has created a giant gray area and left AI’s place in copyright unclear. It also means the law doesn’t account for AI’s unique abilities, like its potential to work endlessly and mimic the sound of a specific artist.
Not to mention the question of who owns the copyright of this new music. Fascinating discussion here.
Beyoncé's Coachella Performance Coming to Netflix
Over the weekend Netflix announced Beyoncé’s Coachella performance will be coming to the service on April 17.
…a trailer that dropped today promises the special, called Homecoming: A Film By Beyoncé, will be “interspersed with candid footage and interviews detailing the preparation and powerful intent behind her vision, [the movie] traces the emotional road from creative concept to cultural movement.”
Internet Archive Saved 450,000 MySpace Songs
The Internet Archive has uploaded 450,000 MySpace songs collected before the website suffered its data loss.
GarageBand And The Musicians Who Use It
This year is GarageBand’s 15th birthday, and Rolling Stone wrote a great article on how it changed how musicians created their art.
In the first media visit Apple has ever allowed to its under-the-radar Music Apps studio, the team of engineers showed Rolling Stone how the creation process for Garageband’s two types of sounds — synthetic and “real” — can span weeks or sometimes months per instrument, with new hurdles at every turn.
iOS 12: Find Songs by Lyrics in Apple Music
You can search for songs in Apple Music based on their lyrics in the Music app on your iPhone or iPad.
Apple Buys Shazam, Dropping Ads for All Users
Apple announced on Monday that it purchased the song identification service Shazam.
Apple Commemorates Aretha Franklin's Life with Apple Music Playlists
The music world lost a pillar with the passing of Aretha Franklin. She was suffering from pancreatic cancer, as did Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. To commemorate her life Apple has several playlists on Apple Music celebrating her powerful contributions to soul, jazz, R&B, blues, and funk. Aretha’s influence crossed musical genres and that won’t likely change even though she’s gone. You can check out her Apple Music playlists in the Music app on your iPhone or iPad, or under the Browse tab in iTunes music section.
iOS 11: How to Wake Up to Your Own Music
For today’s Quick Tip, we’re going over how to set your own music on an alarm…so if waking up to the joyous sounds of heavy metal is your thing, we’ve got you covered.
TMO Background Mode Encore Interview with Freelance Tech Jounalist Kirk McElhearn
Kirk McElhearn is an expert technical journalist for all things Apple. He was a Senior Contributor at Macworld for 15 years, is known as “The iTunes Guy,” and writes about Macs, security, iTunes, books and music. Kirk has also written several “Take Control Books,” including tutorials on iTunes, Audio Hijack and Scrivener. In this encore appearance, Kirk and I chatted about the evolution of photography at Apple, the emergence of the iPhone as a pocket supercomputer-camera, AI technologies and facial recognition used in iPhone photography, lens and CCD technologies, Aperture vs. iPhoto/Photos, managing digital assets, and how sophisticated software has allowed the average user to take great photos. And more. We finished with a discusion of Kirk’s new podcast (with Jeff Carlson) called PhotoActive which is all about photography and the Apple ecosystem.
Apple Camp 2018: Robots, Music, and Video
If you’re a kid between 8 and 12 years old, it’s time to sign up for Apple Camp. This year’s programs include Coding with Sphero Robots, Beat Making and Songwriting with GarageBand, and Telling Stories with Clips. The programs are hosted at local Apple stores and are 90 minutes a day for three days throughout July. The programs are all free and they fill up fast so be sure to sign up right away. You can check out the program descriptions and sign up at the Apple Camp website.
How to Correct Siri’s Music Choices
OK, so Siri isn’t always great at answering follow-up questions. (And if you talk to Apple’s voice assistant a lot, you’ve probably used colorful language at it because of that very thing.) But fortunately, it does parse follow-up requests well for music, so you can correct it when it chooses the wrong item to play. We’ll tell you how to do that in today’s Quick Tip!
AltConf and WWDC 2018 Interview: Josh Brown
San Jose – Jeff Gamet sits down with Josh Brown from Softorino to talk about Apple’s WWDC announcements, and the state of managing content on our iPhones and iPads.
Apple Enabling Apple Music Web Player to Stream Full Tracks for Subscribers
Apple is launching web support for Apple Music, allowing users to play back full tracks without the need for iTunes or an iOS device. But it’s not yet clear if this feature will give subscribers full access to their libraries or simply allow the streaming of full tracks from preset embeddable widgets.
