No doubt by now, some of you ubernerds are drafting your comments about ZumoDrive or DropBox, but neither of those solutions offer start-to-finish music purchasing, storage and listening… not to mention that none of those services are offering 20GB free either!

MP3s bought in the Amazon MP3 store can be stored directly in your cloud, accessed anywhere, and downloaded at anytime. You can also upload files from your local hard drive to your Amazon Cloud Drive. Those files could be music files, documents, anything you want. The music ones will be accessible from within your Cloud Player as well.

Presently, the only mobile support is for Android, since the player is Flash based. Hopefully that will change sooner than later.

PROMO: If you purchase an MP3 album from Amazon between now and the end of the year, you can bump up for free storage from 5GB-20GB. Need a good album to check out? Scope out our Wax Picks section or check out this months’ $5 albums (especially The Civil Wars!). ACCESS THE PROMO HERE.

Way to go Jeff Bezos, slay the dragon.

Free Amazon Cloud Drive + Cloud MP3 Player is a post from: wax&wires

TC has put the PolyTune iPhone App on sale for just 99 cents for the next three days. How many of you have used it or the stomp box version? Do you like it? I’m still rocking my Peterson StroboStomp 1, but will definitely get this for tuning when I don’t have my board out.

You can get it here.

TC Electronics PolyTune iPhone App On Sale for $0.99 is a post from: wax&wires

I posted this on my tumblr quite a while back, but realized I never shared it here. It is an awesome interactive HTML5 piece for Arcade Fire’s The Wilderness Downtown. It was created by Chris Milk, who is also responsible for the equally brilliant Johnny Cash Project, as well as a handful of other pop music videos for Kanye, Gnarls Barkley, Modest Mouse and more.

Everybody has been heralding Web 2.0 for it’s interactivity, and we’ve seen some of the repercussions of that for the music industry in the way artists’ content goes viral and how bands communicate with fans. Now we’re starting to reach a third tier where so much content is actually user defined and user generated. Very cool.

theWildernessDowntown.com
theJohnnyCashProject.com

Chris Milk and A New Kind of Music Video is a post from: wax&wires

[Via CNET]

With the iTunes’ banner waving supremely over the digital music landscape, Google continues to build its own music service, CNET has learned.

According to multiple music industry sources, Google could launch a music service that offers song downloads and streaming music as early as this fall.

Google has already signaled that it wishes to give users of phones equipped with Google’s Android operating system a better music offering. At Google’s I/O conference last month, the search engine offered attendees a demonstration of a Web-based iTunes competitor. Also TechCrunch reported two weeks ago that it discovered a “Google Music” logo hosted on Google’s domain.

But Google’s plans go beyond Android, say music sector insiders. CNET has learned that Google first stoked excitement among executives at some of the top four major labels during the Consumer Electronics Show in January. That’s where they revealed some of the features that a Google music store might include, such as tying digital downloads and streaming music to Google’s search results.

Google did not respond to interview requests.

Read Full Article…

Google Streaming Music Service Rumored By Fall is a post from: wax&wires

With all the activity around polyphonic DSP lately (Melodyne DNA, etc), you had to figure we’d see a polyphonic stompbox tuner in that mix sooner or later. My biggest hesitance would be whether or not it can track fast enough on all six strings to make it intuitive to use. From the reviews below, it seems like it does a fair job.

PolyTune – Polyphonic Guitar Tuning From TC Electronic is a post from: wax&wires

This interactive art installation was the brain child of James Theopane Jr. While the mobile phones play “Carol of the Bells” in this video, you can log online and control the music for yourself here. The only trouble is, at least when I tried it, there was no feedback mechanism in place to let you see or hear what you were playing.

Work asked me to do something for their Christmas card. I work for an Interactive Agency.

To cut a long story short, after a company-wide upgrade the agency had a lot of old mobiles gathering dust. We took these, built and hoisted a gigantic interactive chandelier/mobile that plays Christmas jingles in our reception.

To add a little xmas spice to the mix, anyone can go online and enjoy annoying the hell out of people waiting around in the reception, by playing the thing live from their web browser: xmas.lbi.co.uk

Details on how we made it and some behind the scenes content are available on my blog: theophane.co.uk/mobile-mobile

Mobile Mobile has been made as a semi-permanent hanging (exhibition) space. In January the mobiles will be replaced with another hanging media, then updated month in, month out.

Mobile Mobile is just one in a line of many great lo-fi art/build concepts; from the Design Museum’s Aquarium, Digital By Design, Troika and The Cloud, the Printer Bleeping Thingy (I can’t remember who did it), all the great work by W+K, and of course, AKQA’s wonderful microwaves from last Christmas.

Looking forward to many more to come.

Carol Of The Cells is a post from: wax&wires

That’s a rhetorical question.

The answer is no.

The Eigenharp Alpha is a mishmash of music making tools all rolled into one device. Many have mistaken it for a Chapman stick, which it’s not.

It features:

• 120 pressure-sensitive keys (sensitive down to 1 micron of movement… nuts)
• 12 percussion keys (which can also be assigned to other functions)
• a bassoon-like breath pipe
• hookups for expression pedals (and let’s face it, if you’re rocking this bad boy, you’re definitely feeling the need to express yourself)
• a phantom powered microphone preamp
• a headphone amp for nerding out without disturbing anybody (unless they happen to see you)

Now I’m just waiting for some hipster indie band like Mute Math to make it their new stage gimmick and watch all the scenesters’ pupils dilate.

All that said… I think I kinda want one…

You can find out more info about the Eigenharp Alpha, and it’s light-weight counterpart the Pico, on their site.

VIDEO: The Eigenharp Alpha is a post from: wax&wires

Polyphonic claims to have predicted Norah Jones’ success before she garnered top honors for her album back in 2002.

Take it all with a grain of salt though, as the U-Playa goal is clearly (as it should be) to make money as a business.

You can submit your song to see if you’ve got a hit right here.

The video quality’s subpar on this, but definitely worth a watch.

Using Math To Judge your Songs’ Hit Potential is a post from: wax&wires

Half a decade later, I was reintroduced to Danielson after really getting into Sufjan Stevens, and hearing of his ties to the band. I slowly started to get what it was that Daniel Smith was about, and what he was trying to do with his music. It finally clicked why he has such a fervent fanbase.

Today, Danielson releases a new 7-inch in partnership with Weathervane Music, a non-profit organization dedicated to increasing the social conscience with regards to independent music and artists’ rights, particularly in Philadelphia.

Check this video out too, for more of the technical info on the production process of Daniel Smith.

VIDEO: New Danielson Project is a post from: wax&wires

We’ve always heard the same example, “A final mix is like a cake. Once you bake it, you can’t get your eggs back.” Well, Audionamix claims to give you all of your ingredients back, so that you can make a new dish with them.

Audionamix (aka Mist Technologies) is a technology company in the cutting edge field of signal processing and High Definition audio treatment. It has developed the first and only technology capable of reverse engineering a monophonic or stereophonic recording into its multi-track components, extracting and separating voice or music from the original mix.

It can be used to isolate voices, remove noise, restore and enhance audio, and thereby enables High Definition True Surround Sound upmixing in 5.1 or 7.1 channels on any original audio recording.

Hear for yourself:
[pro-player width='580' height='387' type='video' image='http://waxandwires.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/audionamix-HOME.jpg']http://www.waxandwires.com/video/Audionamix-VeraLynn.mp4[/pro-player]

You can get more info on the Audionamix site.

Audionamix Source Separation – Undo To Create is a post from: wax&wires

Moby’s point about working from home, creating an environment conducive for creativity is a good one. It reminds me of the whole idea behind Record Plant LA when it first opened up, creating a space that feels more comfortable than a studio.

VIDEO: Moby Shows Off His Drum Machine Collection is a post from: wax&wires

Although I don’t understand any of the dialogue, I can more or less deduce what’s happening: A computer runs an FFT on an audio file to pull out what frequencies are being tapped at any given moment. It then relays that information to the piano, where said frequencies (or close estimations therein, since the piano doesn’t represent the whole spectrum) are struck to create as close to the original waveform’s sound as possible.

Practical implications have yet to be seen, but it’s definitely a fascinating project. If we could find an acoustic instrument, likely not 12-tone equal temperament as the piano is, that reflected a broader range of frequencies, we could get closer to replicating the original audio.

I think that might defeat the point though, as the missed frequencies are the very thing that give the “Talking Piano” its unique, albeit creepy sound.

VIDEO: The Talking Piano is a post from: wax&wires

I have no idea how it sounds, but if you’re into that whole steam-punk / HG Wells / Jules Verne sort of thing, it will definitely float your winged-amphibious-steam-powered boat. Just make sure you order the 120V version, I’d hate for you to be in the middle of a gig and run out of coal…

You can get more info at ElectronLuv.com. The real eye candy is at their fab shop’s site, E3Fabrication.com.

Electron Luv Amps – HG Wells Makes Amps? is a post from: wax&wires

Tim Exile’s Live Reaktor Rig is a post from: wax&wires

VIDEO: Imogen Heap Live Set Up is a post from: wax&wires