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Rocket Piano – Learn Piano Today! Review

admin — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 11:34:37 +0000

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Rocket Piano - Learn Piano Today!

Make Own Music | Rocket Piano – the Ultimate Piano Learning Kit

If you are learning the piano, either as a beginner or as a slightly more advanced player, you can appreciate how frustrating it is learning the skills and techniques without seeing any noticeable results. The time and effort that many put into exercises don’t seem to be reflected in their standard of playing. There also seems to be a frustration in the lack of quality information on the market.

The Piano Guy and the team at Rocket Piano have bucked the trend with the latest developments to the Rocket Piano brand. They have had considerable success with their 3 book series, Learn to Play the Piano with Rocket Piano – the Ultimate Piano Learning Kit. Given the positive feedback from the success of this package, the team decided to develop the product further, and have come up with a package that is unrivalled in terms of quality and its comprehensive nature. This package truly does enable piano students to accelerate their learning, and includes an impressive array of features.

In addition to the quality information in the glossy 3 book series, the team at Rocket Piano has included hundreds of sound files that explain how to play, so you can hear what your playing is supposed to sound like. The songs are broken down into pieces, which enables the student to learn each piece before they are ready to tackle the whole song. Being able to play these songs will amaze friends and acquaintances alike, and this is made easy through the hundreds of lines of music included for your benefit.

In addition to this, the team have spent hours developing exclusive educational computer games to develop your skills in reading and training your ear to transcribe music. The pro version of Jayde Musica is now available as a free bonus as well as Perfect Your Pitch Pro, a program that is designed to give the student the ability to tune their ear to recognize notes and transcribe songs from the radio. Both of these programs are very well made and presented, and most of all are easy and fun to play.

As well as this, when you purchase the package, you get two additional free bonus books. The first is “Advanced Learning Techniques for Piano”. This book introduces the idea of mental visualization, which is a powerful tool in speeding up your rate of learning. Mental visualization uses the same pathways inside your brain other than the fact you are not performing the activity physically. The second bonus book, “How to tune your piano” solves the problem with tuning pianos, and introduces the reader to the most effective way of tuning a piano.

With all of the information in this package there really is no excuse to delay learning to play your piano. The Rocket Piano team has given the reader five high quality books, two fun educational games and access to hundreds of recorded sound files that will have students playing popular songs like a professional in no time.

As an added bonus, the team at Rocket Piano has also thrown in free email consultations to customers that may have specific issues or problems that need addressing. This is of enormous benefit to students that need specific answers to their training queries.

This package is by far the most complete and fresh approach to piano playing that I have seen in a long time. I highly recommend this product because I do believe it will deliver results and have you playing popular songs like a professional using the most effective techniques. There is something here for every piano player, regardless of ability. And at the current cost, it really is worth every dollar spent!

If you have any experience with this software, please leave a comment and rate it

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Magix Samplitude 10 Review

admin — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:26:24 +0000

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Make Own Music With Magix Samplitude 10

The Complete Suite
The philosophy behind these last two major additions would seem obviously to be to make Samplitude 10 as self-contained as possible, encompassing all processes from initial recording or programming to final mastering. Although plug-in automation has been available for quite a while in Samplitude, it only applied to third-party plug-ins. In this new version, automation capability has been added to Samplitude’s own suite of high-quality processors, pretty much making the use of any but the very best offerings from other manufacturers quite unnecessary. The other addition, the forbiddingly complex Am-munition dynamics plug-in, has clearly been designed as a programme compressor/limiter, not fundamentally a track-level processor.
However, a couple of considerations made me pause to wonder what the Magix party line really is. Another notable offering among the new releases, placed second in the roll-call in the Samplitude manual, is a new Cleaning & Restoration Suite, which includes a De-clicker/De-crackler, a De-clipper, a De-noiser with Noise Print Wizard, and a Brilliance Enhancer to help “compensate for losses incurred during MP3 coding”, all available as real-time effects. This is a desirable set of tools for work encountered by many mastering engineers, so you’d assume it would be included in the top-of-the-range Samplitude Pro. But it isn’t — versions of the De-clipper and De-noiser are, but only off-line, and without the Wizard.
Although the new tools are available as standard in the £2000 Sequoia and in the £200 Samplitude Master, they are not available in the Pro version of Samplitude itself, except as an add-on for 99 Euros, and only direct from Magix. So what is Samplitude Master? It’s a two-track version of Samplitude, cut to the bone, apparently to deal with finished mixes, and so doing without any MIDI tweaks, audio quantisation, optimised workflows and other such functions. At roughly a third of the price of the Pro version, and yet including the Cleaning & Restoration Suite, Samplitude Master would seem to be the way to go for mastering specialists who don’t need MIDI or mixing capability — hence the name, or so you’d think. Except that one of the important deletions from Samplitude Master is the set of Magix plug-ins — including the brand-new, mastering-inclined Am-munition.
Maybe I’m being a bit dim here, but this arrangement seems to be the worst of both worlds. For mastering purposes only, there are certainly ways in which the Samplitude Pro feature set could be drastically pruned to cut costs, but the Magix plug-ins are so useful and of such a high quality you’d really want to keep those on board. Yet if you spring the extra £400 for the Pro version, to get them, you’ll find the Cleaning & Restoration Suite missing. Here’s my advice to Magix: don’t mix us all up. If the Cleaning Suite is ‘Pro’ quality, include it in Samplitude Pro as standard.

New Features Round-up

As well as the automation, Am-munition and a new ‘Universal HQ’ resampling time-stretching/pitch-shifting algorithm (see box below), other notable improvements include new range-handling capabilities, side-chain routing for all VST and Magix plug-ins with more than two inputs, the Independence LE sample workstation (with a 4GB sound library), better mapping for hardware controllers, and a complete, successful makeover of the control-bar skins and general appearance.
Another new, and potentially extremely useful, addition is the ‘Overview mode’, which adds a representation of the entire project in a separate window below the main VIP window. Non-linear navigation through the VIP by lassoing sections of the overview or clicking in it is now very quick and easy, and can be much more speedy and accurate than (linear) scrolling. Samplitude’s particular way of implementing the overview function is very similar, for example, to the ‘navigation pane’ of SADiE, and does not offer visual cues to tell you exactly where you are, but hovering the mouse cursor over a section of the overview will bring up the object (clip) name and start time as a further aid to accurate navigation. The only slight grumble I have is the time it takes for Samplitude to actually display the location information: I only want my cursor to have to hover for a moment, not be kept in a holding pattern for whole seconds. I’m sure this is easily fixed: it’s not as if that action is competing with any other and needs any real computational decisions.
One feature that has slightly changed content but, happily, not its irrationality is the gloriously random (and slightly bonkers) index at the back of the manual. No mention will be found there of Am-munition dynamics processing, Cleaning & Restoration Suite (hint: look under ‘New’), Resampling HQ algorithms, or other such useful items. Instead, under ‘A’ we find “Access to the Internet must be permitted”; under ‘H’, “How it works” (“it” turns out to be aux bussing); under ‘I’, “Information regarding Samplitude network installation”. My favourites are under ‘T’, which covers both “The difference between loading and importing audio files” and “There is no permanent memory on the standard CodeMeter stick”. There are also, incidentally, 14 individual entries for ROBOTA, all referring to the same four pages. But this isn’t really a complaint; such quirkiness now feels like part of Samplitude’s individual charm (like the ketchup bottle on the SADiE toolbar for ‘write back to source file’).

Automation

The most powerful new feature in Samplitude 10 is the advanced automation that is now available at track, object and master level. At track level — the most comprehensive of the options — you can automate the volume, the pan, aux sends, track EQ, and all of the parameters of the excellent suite of Magix plug-ins that have been provided as standard since Samplitude 9 (see Sam Inglis’s review in SOS January 2007). Track volume and pan automation is pretty common in most digital audio workstations these days — how could we create a mix of even moderate complexity without it? — but the new availability of full and efficient automation for the normal channel-strip and other Magix plug-ins opens up a whole host of creative and corrective possibilities.
In the early days of multitrack recordings, mixes were generally fairly ‘static’: the main advantage of mixing was felt to reside simply in making post-recording balance choices possible, so once a mix was agreed it stayed pretty much the same throughout the song. But then more dynamic mixing techniques were developed and ‘flying fader’ automation was invented to ease the task, and eventually upped the creative ante — for those who could afford it. I have fond memories (well, memories) of working with non-automated mixing desks in situations where I had to write out and rehearse fader moves, with every member of the band being given responsibility for various mix parameters (though never the level fader of their own instrument!) for live dynamic mixdowns. Of course, with no automation, there was no recall either, so an error in any single pass required a completely new attempt. Within such constraints, the creative element of dynamic mixing was severely limited (although, of course, it didn’t feel like it at the time): fading sources in or out, up or down, and rough manipulation of aux send levels was just about the best that could be hoped for. So when automation became more widely available, creative juices began to run more freely. This is the kind of place where art and technology sit so well together: when what is initially developed as an added convenience eventually becomes a creative tool in its own right.
The reason I’m labouring this point a little is because until you have tried working with this level of automation you may not know just how creatively interesting mixing can be. Of course, such a level has been available for a long while, for those with the budgets to cover it, and even in some lower-budget DAWs, but the particular combination of well thought-out automation and the high-quality plug-ins in Samplitude seems to me to provide a whole new level of creativity for the cash.

Conclusion

What is beginning to push Samplitude ahead of the large, unruly pack of DAWs that now offer complete in-the-box solutions for recording, mixing and mastering engineers is the usable quality of what actually comes in their boxes. Magix’s decision to automate their plug-ins, and then add the excellent Am-munition to their roster, makes a strong case for Samplitude being quite the best DAW of its class. My grump about the non-inclusion of the new Cleaning & Restoration Suite in Samplitude Pro is only because that one odd omission seems to break the promise of being able to buy a single software package that, in the right hands, can do everything required. In absolute terms, of course, the individual elements have competition from the very highest-quality stand-alone developments (both hardware and software), against which they do not compare, but even if you have the budget to employ those tools, I’d still suggest you buy Samplitude for the basics of capture and mix control and then move further with the extra money. For the rest of us, given that those basics now come in at such a high quality, we can buy Samplitude for nearly everything else as well and be amazed at the money we’ve saved.

If you have any experience with this software, please leave a comment and rate it

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List of free loops & music sample sites

admin — Sun, 28 Feb 2010 11:14:12 +0000

Make Own Music | Just thought i would drop in & give you some more helpfull info… Today i will be drop’n you-lot, a list of sites where you can get your hands on free music samples & loops…

http://audiomastermind.com/

http://www.pcmusic.org

http://www.findmidis.com

http://free-loops.com

http://www.freeloops.com

http://freemusicsoftware.org

http://hiphopmusicmp3.com

http://loopking.com

http://loopasonic.com

http://www.looperman.com

http://mididb.com

http://mididrumfiles.com

http://www.soundsnap.com

http://www.soundonsound.com

http://soundcentral.com

http://www.timespace.com

http://yourbeats.com

Most of these sites will have something to offer in the way of free music loops/samples.

Have fun

Magix Music Maker 16 Review

admin — Sun, 14 Feb 2010 08:10:57 +0000

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Make Own Music With Magix Music Maker
If you consider yourself even mildly musical, a good piece of audio production software is a worthy addition to your arsenal. One such tool is Magix’s Music Maker, a digital mixing tool with a slick interface and plenty of features for serious musicians. First time users will need to spend considerable time learning the ins and outs of the program, but don’t let that stop you; Magix provides plenty of interactive tutorials and online forums for guidance.

This version of Music Maker adds plenty of new tools to an already robust feature set. You can still access preloaded instrument loops as well as pull up BeatBox, the built-in drum machine. The Infobox feature teaches you about music as you’re producing it, and Sound Vision reorganizes your sounds into a visual scheme. And there’s the option to publish directly to MySpace or YouTube. The program also offers extended sound effects, authentic guitar and amp sounds, and a Microscope Mode for even more detailed editing on the sound wave of objects.

If you’ve used other music production software that employs looping and sound effects, chances are you’ll be able to catch on to Music Maker pretty easily, but there are definitely differences that will take some figuring out. The online tutorials are useful for everyone, not just novice users. You’ll definitely want to check those out if you really want to dive into the program for all its worth. Also, if you’re itching for more virtual instruments, consider upgrading to the premium version.

Publisher’s description

Magix Music Maker offers an easy start, and lets you experience what it’s like to dive into the depths of music production. A giant sound archive and an especially intuitive approach to creating original music as well as many useful functions result in an unbeatable complete package for making your own songs. The new Easy Mode makes creating radio play-ready hits possible even for beginners–no time needed for breaking in, no previous knowledge necessary.

Thanks to the new info box, all important functions can be understood during their application. With BeatBox 2, the new groove tool, you can create unbelievable beats with incredible ease. More than 1,500 new, current sounds in contemporary styles round off the functional range. Thus, Magix Music Maker offers you everything from one source: from creating your own songs and whole CD albums, to remixing MP3s to publication of self-created hits and music videos on the web.

If you have any experience with this software, please leave a comment and rate it

How Important is Microphone Placement?

admin — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 13:55:36 +0000

Magix Music Maker provides a unique convergence between studio hardware and a home pc… what that means is that many people are now able to record on a more professional level but are not aware of some of the tips and tricks to get the best sound. One of those tips is mic placement.

You might hear some of these “Audio Geniuses” praising mic placement like it’s the holy grail of recording… they do this because they’re right!

Whether you have a Neuman condenser or a web-cam mic; placement is very important. Take your time and try placing your mic in several different areas; critically listening for that sweet spot. This can take some time but it will the difference between a mediocre or great track. I can spend an hour putting my ear where the mic will be and listening for the best sound – sometimes movement of even a couple of inches makes a world of difference.

Also, many microphones are prone to what’s called the proximity effect – the closer to the source, the more bass response. This can be used to your advantage to beef up vocals or thin out an acoustic guitar – you might even have to record each placement until you get the hang of it.

I record myself speaking the location of the mic and then singing or playing the instrument I intend to record… for example I’ll record “mic 10 inches from guitar near the 12th fret.” Then the guitarist will play. When I review the recordings of multiple placements I’ll know exactly where it sounded best. Then fine tune it with subtle adjustments.

Find where the mic sounds best and you will be rewarded with better recordings.

Have fun

Making mp3 Albums Using Cleaning Lab 14

admin — Sat, 06 Feb 2010 10:55:03 +0000

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MAGIX Audio Cleaning Lab 14 Download version

Using Magix Cleaning Lab to Enhance Your MP3 Experience
Magix Audio Cleaning Lab 14 is a great tool for cleaning up those recorded files that need a bit of cleaning. But here’s a little trick that I use to make what I call “MP3 Albums”.
I became frustrated while listening to my MP3 player because the level of the music varies,sometimes quite damatically,from label to label. For instance ; spin a song from Peter Gabriel’s Us and then play ZZ Top’s Mescalro imediately afterward without adjusting the volume of your listening device. Ok,after your ears stop ringing you might want to seek the help of a hearing specialist. Enter Magix Audio Cleaning Lab. Simply import Mp3 , wave files,or rip the music right from a CD. You can even change the sequence of the order afterward. Then we move to the cleaning stage (you’ll find this tab at the top of the window). You’ll need to select a track. Then on the left side of the window choose the link that says Optimise/Mastering. Choose Optimise Volume. Choose Independent Normalization of all Objects.
Now I have many CDs and some were printed in the 1980’s. If you’re like me (too cheap to buy the remasters this next feature is great). Choose Start Loudness Adaptation (RMS Normalization). Depending on the speed of your computer you’ll need to wait a few seconds for this to complete. Afterward you’ll notice that your levels have been changed. Not only are your volume levels adjusted into closer proximity of one another,they also have a compression ratio added. This means that your songs will sound more like the radio.
Now I hope you have been logging the names of your songs. You can do this as you go along with the Magix Track List. If you export the songs as individual tracks the names will go with them. However,I like to make albums. Sometimes I’ll have one track fade into another. So I keep a list of my tracks on a Windows Notepad. Then after I export all of the songs as one file I simply open the MP3,go to the properties tab,choose advance,open the comments window and simply paste the Notepad file here for a permanent record of the songs within that mp3 file.
I hope this has been helpful . And wish you many hours of listening pleasure.
-Guitorb

If you have any experience with this software, please leave a comment and rate it

Another FREE Plugins Linklist

admin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 11:16:29 +0000

Here is another link list of sites offering free plugins, free samples/loops, and other freebies

http://www.vst4free.com/index.php

http://www.vstplanet.com/index.htm

http://www.plugindex.de/

http://www.dontcrack.com/freeware/software.php/id/7030/audio/Virtual-Instruments/plugins/VST/

http://www.techno-id.com/vst_plug-ins.htm

http://www.freesoundeditor.com/incageneng.html?VSTSyntheng.htm~main

http://www.ugoaudio.com/

Have fun

Guitar Superstars Review

admin — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 12:44:52 +0000

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Learn Guitar With Guitar Superstars

‘Guitar Super Stars’ is a unique guitar course on the Internet. It not only guides you how to learn guitar in the best way, but also shows you how to make playing guitar your profession. No matter your dream is to play guitar on a world tour or instruct other people to master this fantastic musical instrument, ‘Guitar Super Stars’ will help you accomplish it.
‘Guitar Super Stars’ is created by Andy Johnson, who has been a guitar teacher for over 20 years. Apart from teaching people to play the guitar, he also has experience in touring around the world with his band.
You will be given a list of videos covering all the guitar techniques, including rock, metal, acoustic, classical, jazz, funk, blues and bass. Certainly, you will be learning all fundamental and complex methods, like beginning chords, rock licks, picking technique, rudiments, pentatonic scales, hammer on’s, pull off’s and more.
Some of the videos will train you how to play popular songs, like Canon in D and The Four Horsemen by Metallica, so you can have a sense of triumph and pleasure in a very short period of time.
In order to provide you the best information, there are special guitar experts teaching you to play various music styles. For instance, you will have Ben Phillips, who has worked on more than 100 albums in the last 20 years and started offering guitar teaching worldwide, coaching you all the secret techniques to play rock guitar like a pro.
Each teacher has his own expertise and ‘Guitar Super Stars’ consider it the ultimate way for you to study whatever style you want. You will be learning how to play the guitar with real professionals, but not the one who just has little understanding in every music styles.
They also provide a bonus, GSS Jam Machine, to make your learning enjoyable and practical. It allows you to jam songs with real bands and you can even adjust the key and tempo as you want. Playing with professional musicians is without doubt the best way to improve your guitar techniques.

After you have acquired the entire guitar skills from ‘Guitar Super Stars’, your learning journey still continues. You will find out how to write an award-winning song in an uncomplicated way, how to record your first album, how to make money from your recorded music and even how to make labels offer contract to you. It is the only step-by-step guide online to demonstrate you how to convert playing guitar for fun into your profession.

Since there are several teachers in ‘Guitar Super Stars’, you may find it hard to adapt to their individual coaching method. However the value of having instructions from a specialist in blues guitar, for example, is meaningful. And you will also be offered one-on-one support so you will not feel over-whelmed during the education.
‘Guitar Super Stars’ method will bring you lots of joy and thrill.

If you have any experience with this software, please leave a comment and rate it

Jamorama Easy Guitar Lessons Review

admin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 10:11:05 +0000

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Jamorama Easy Guitar Lessons

Jamorama is a great acoustic guitar learning course! It has such a long-standing status for being high quality, and for helping absolute beginners to guitar-playing learn to master the instrument.

The Jamorama guitar course runs via a software interface. This software works both in the Mac and PC, making this an all-inclusive way to study to play the guitar. Through this software, you’ll be capable to download and access learning resources. What’s extraordinary about this is that you’re not flooded with tons of learning material right away. You only download and apply the material as you are ready to study. At the time of this writing, Jamorama contains 15 full lessons; not including bonuses.

You’ll discover written stuff, as well as video and software components along with the guitar lessons. The lessons are written in guitar tablature, and each section has a supportive video so you’re certain to recognize all that is being taught. This is a fantastic thing, as one of the most vital parts of learning a new skill is receiving the information in a few various ways. In this case, the written word, visual components, and software interactivity will assist you learn guitar much quicker than if you were to just use one of these learning techniques.

I found the bonus software and games quite inspiring. It comes with the Jayde Musica, Guit-ear-it, Guitar Tuner Pro, Jamorama Metronome, How to Tune Your Guitar, and Advanced Guitar Learning Techniques. These bonus components, along with the actual lesson materials, are done in a very methodical way so you’ll get all you need by way of teaching in the Jamorama guitar course.

Those who are a little more advanced with guitar playing, or who have any practise at all, should know that the first lessons are absolutely geared toward beginners. From learning how to hold the guitar to learning how to strum, you may want to breeze through the first few instruction except you’re completely new to the guitar.

Jamorama is also not going to empty your pockets. The Standard Version is available for $49,95 and includes all you’ll need to get started. The DeLuxe Version is available for $99,95. This course comes extremely recommended for those who want to learn how to play the guitar.

If you have any experience with this software, please leave a comment and rate it

FREE Plugins Linklist

admin — Fri, 22 Jan 2010 06:52:32 +0000

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Here is a link list of sites offering free plugins, free samples/loops, and other freebies

http://www.audiomastermind.com/browse-free_vst_plugins-5886988-1.html
A lot of vst/vst-i. Some of them with exotical character
http://www.kvraudio.com/
Well, I guess everybody know this one
http://www.loopmasters.com/
Loopmasters is a page done by real Producers. Sign up for a free membership in order to get free loops/samples.
http://www.sanusart.com/synths.php
Various FREE plugins and synthesizer
http://www.vst4free.com/
Great FREE plugins page with vst/vst-i, synthesizer and sampler

I like especially the following plugins from vst4free:
Cellofan by Soundkey: http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?id=198
MiniDiZi by Kong Audio: http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?id=309
MiniErhu by Kong Audio: http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?id=308
DVS Guitar by Dream Vortex: http://www.vst4free.com/free_vst.php?id=192

Have fun