Top 5 online music stores

Posted by Jasmine France

As one may suspect, working in digital music gives a person a somewhat skewed view about the permeation of online music in the general population. Everyone (aside from audiophiles and vinyl buffs) is getting their music fix though the Web nowadays, right? Wrong. Although digital music is on the rise, it's still well behind CDs in terms of overall sales ($2.8 billion versus $15.9 billion, according to one report).

Another report forecasts that digital music sales won't surpass physical media for another four years. Well, what say we prove some people wrong (always fun) and shave a year or two off that number? To help you sort through the clutter of online music, I've rounded up my Top 5 choices for digital tunes. These selections aren't really in any particular order; rather, each service offers a variety of advantages depending on your personal needs and preferences.

read more at: http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-9992592-1.html

Stream Music to your XBox 360 and PS3 with TVersity

Stream Music to your XBox 360 and PS3 with TVersity       Common question we get at Digital Home is how to stream multimedia files (photo, video and music) from a computer to an Xbox 360 or Playstation 3.       If your PS3 or Xbox 360 is hooked up to your home network then perhaps the most robust and simplest solution Digital Home Canada has found to stream multimedia files from a computer to a next generation gaming console is a free software application called TVersity.         In a nutshell, TVersity is a Universal Media Server for Home and Internet Content that makes it easy to stream virtually any type of media file from your computer or the internet to your game console.           TVersity Inc., the company that produces the software, claims the media serving software has been downloaded more than two million times since inception - half of that in the last six months -and is the dominant media serving software for video game console owners.           In addition to stream content to an Xbox 360 or PS3 you can also use TVersity to stream content to networked TVs, DVDs, Stereo Receivers, Digital Media Adapaters/Receivers, Xbox 360, Mobile Phones, Satellite, Cable set-top-boxes, Mobile Phones, PDAs, Sony PSP, PS3, iTunes/iPod and more. Chances are if you have a network enabled device, you can stream content to it using TVersity. read more at:     http://www.digitalhome.ca/content/view/2688/206/

Apple i-tunes 7.7

Apple i-tunes 7.7Apple iTunes 7.7


by Michael Muchmore and Rick Broida

Apple iPhoneIn his 2008 Macworld trade show keynote, one of Apple CEO Steve Jobs's big announcements was that you'd now be able to rent movies as well as just download and buy them outright. He admitted that Apple had bet wrong in offering only sales of downloaded movies. Apple iTunes, version 7.6, made the new rental service possible. A new point release, 7.7 makes a few significant changes—the most notable being support for the Apple App Store and the iPhone 3G, but the company has yet to address our complaint about the store's lack of a music-subscription service.
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Slideshow | All Shots

Version 7.4, of iTunes added support for new iPods, addressed some serious security vulnerabilities and added closed captions, a rating system, and a larger window for viewing video on your computer. That version dovetailed with the release of the classic, the touch, and the third-generation nano. It also let iPhone owners create custom ringtones from songs bought on the iTunes Music Store (for a buck more per song). Version 7.5 added support for the iPhone in territories besides the U.S. and implemented several bug fixes.

With version 7.6, the big news was the introduction of movie rentals, but, disappointingly, music-subscription options like those offered by Napster, Rhapsody, and other Windows Media-based services were—and are still—nowhere to be found. Music remains an à la carte, 99-cents-per-track proposition. For some reason, Apple still wants to give this advantage to the Microsoft Zune. On the positive side, now the DRM-free, higher bit-rate tracks available from the iTunes Plus section of the music store cost the same 99 cents as other songs.

The biggest new feature in iTunes 7.7 is the introduction of the new App Store, a resource for downloading all of those third-party applications to the iPhone and iPod Touch. Since launching the update late last night, the App Store has begun rolling out a number Apps. Ahead of the 7.7 launch, Steve Jobs gave the folks at The New York Times a sneak preview of the store, saying that it would, "offer more than 500 software applications, including games, educational programs, mobile commerce and business productivity tools."

However, despite the large selection, and Apple's fairly notorious control over the ties between its software and hardware, Jobs insisted that taking a big percentage from the apps was far from the company's goal "We are not trying to be business partners," he told The Times. Instead the company is looking to "sell more iPhones." Seventy percent of the apps' sale price will go to their designers. A quarter of the first 500 app will be free. Ninety percent of the remainder will be available for $9.99 or less. For more, see our AppScout iTunes/App Store story.

The new release of iTunes will also let you "sync music, video, and more with iPhone 3G," according to Apple. The company is also offering Remote, a free application downloadable from the App Store that will let you control iTunes playback from anywhere in your home. We'll be testing both claims very shortly. Check our complete coverage of iPhone 3G for more on that.

pure music collage

LOCAL SCENE: Pure music collage
GIRL TALK HITS BOULDER WITH HIS MIX OF ALMOST 300 SONGS ON ONE CD


By WENDY KALE Colorado Daily Music Writer




Gregg Gillis loves his pop music. He just prefers to mash-up all the sounds into a DJ party mix that is quickly becoming the hottest ticket in concert halls and on the Internet. Using over 300 classic-pop samples, Gillis has created a 50-minute show that incorporates his pop-music passion into a high-tech, party-centric concert. The buzz is on about Girl Talk and Friday’s Fox Theatre show sold out in advance.


Girl Talk is also breaking news in the world of downloadable CD sales. Gillis decided to let his fans digitally download his new record “Feed the Animals” via a “pay what you want” plan on www.IllegalArt.net. The CD will be officially released on Sept. 23 and it’s also slated to come out on vinyl.

“I got into avant-garde and electronic music when I was in college,” said Gillis. “I did go into the field of biomedical engineering, but I treated the music as my career. I started by dabbling in retexturalizing pop – I started sampling music and kept manipulating it. I wanted to create something original and I wanted to try something new. I picked the name Girl Talk, so it would sound like a very glossy, poppy project.”Gillis’ brand of “cut-and-paste” remixes started catching on with underground music fans, but the Internet was the primary force behind Girl Talk. The DJ’s knack for fusing pop tunes and turning them into experimental, electronic mixes helped Gillis create “new” songs through the world of technology. The DJ also became known for his outrageous stage antics and his knack for turning dance and concert halls into full-fledged parties.

To date, Girl Talk has officially released three CDs. As Gillis honed his mash-up style of music mixes, word started spreading about his shows.

“I knew this show had potential –and people caught onto it,” said Gillis. “A lot of people never heard of an album composed of 300 songs, so they didn’t know what to expect. I do use 300 samples on my CDs. It’s a very long, drawn out process for me. I sample hundreds of songs and try out different combinations. Only a small fraction of it will be used down the road.”

The process involved in creating a Girl Talk album is very time-consuming and intense for Gillis, so he only puts out records every two years.

That’s alright – Girl Talk fans are compensated with Gillis’ impressive live shows.

“It’s all about the live show,” said Gillis. “Even when I first started doing the live performances I tried not to do a traditional DJ show. I use a lot of software triggering, loops and samples. I pretty much put together a live music collage. I can move around the stage, just by clicking the mouse. The software’s all loaded up, so I can step away from the computer. It gives me a lot of freedom.”

Gillis says that freeing himself up from his techno toys allows him to interact with his audiences.

“In the early days I did the show with dancers and projectors, now it’s very bare bones,” said Gillis. “The kids know the drill – they know it’s a party. People are really interactive at the shows and I like to get people on stage.”

The nonstop dance party doesn’t disguise the fact that Gillis has come up with a clever new way to satisfy the appetites of pop music fans. Girl Talk has even been asked to do remixes for acts like Tokyo Police Club and Beck. With each tune he creates from the samples, Gillis goes another stop forward in reinventing his techno-pop sounds.

“This is a very unique way to present pop music,” explained Gillis. “My songs are entirely sample-based. It’s a giant pop sound that becomes this pure music collage. My new CD ‘Feed the Animals’ is pretty over the top. It’s much more extreme, complex and accessible. It also has a lot more dynamics than my previous records. I used 300 samples and turned them into 50 minutes of music.”

Gillis used pop music samples from diverse sources – alt-rockers The Toadies, and classic pop stars Journey and Spencer Davis helped create some of the sounds on “Feed the Animals.”

“A lot of times, there might be subtle aspects of the songs used,” added Gillis. “I also tried to touch on every era of pop. I had to sample over 3,000 songs to get these 300 samples for the record. I can’t force the process – it’s all done by trial and error.”

Girl Talk is evoking the DJ’s love of pop music into a new generation of music fans – and they’ve all been rallying around the Internet to hear Gillis’ remixed tunes. The act has earned up to 150,000 hits a day on MySpace, and countless fans have tuned into the DJ’s high-energy videos on YouTube.

Everything was in place for Girl Talk to hit the next level.

Gillis’ sonic pop remixes have now earned him praises in “Rolling Stone,” “Spin” and ‘Pitchfork” magazines. Girl Talk went from playing basement shows for 30 people, to selling out venues around the country. The Fox Theatre isn’t the only venue in the country that sold out tickets a week prior to show time.

Girl Talk has also been asked to appear at all the A-list music festivals, and Gillis has made appearances at Coachella, Lollapalooza and Bonnaroo. The DJ now clocks in over 200 dates a year, and he’s looking forward to performing at the Fox and promoting his new CD.

“We’re really excited about selling the new record on the Internet,” said Gillis. “We’re going to do what Radiohead did and let people pay for what they want. The Internet is really getting things out and the kids are coming to the shows because of it. My shows are pretty over-the-top affairs, so people coming to the Fox can expect a compressed party. It’s a dance event that all goes down in one hour. The music’s too exhaustive to do more than 50 minutes!”

It looks like Girl Talk is living up to the buzz.

source - http://www.coloradodaily.com/news/2008/jul/10/girl-talk-one-hour-of-intense-music-pure-music/


nice article for computer music :-)

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