Music Software

Windows slates should come with Zune software

Microsoft's Windows business faces a real threat from Apple's iPad and the impending crop of similar touch-screen devices running Android, Web OS, and other lightweight mobile operating systems. Windows will remain relevant for years to come, but if even 10 percent of potential laptop or Netbook buyers choose an iPad or other competitor instead, that cuts more than a billion dollars out of Microsoft's largest and most profitable business.

That's right: Microsoft now earns more than $10 billion in profit--not revenue, profit--from the Windows desktop operating system every year.

What's Microsoft's answer? At a … Read more

Bands deliver new material via collectible flash drives

A recent trend among live performers is to record a concert, immediately transfer the recording to flash drives, and sell them as fans walk past the merchandise table on their way out. I first heard of Willie Nelson doing this on a Fourth of July show back in 2007, and I saw the Pixies offer a recording of the Seattle show I attended through EMI's Abbey Road Live program last November.

Aderra, which provides turnkey services for musicians who want to record and sell their own shows on USB drives, is offering a new twist: flash drives that give … Read more

Handicapping the mobile music services

I'm a big proponent of cloud-based music services for mobile devices. I struggle figuring out which 500 songs I want on my 8GB iPhone at any given time, and the problem gets worse as as I download more apps. So it's gratifying to see an explosion of mobile music services in the last six months. Start-ups and established companies alike seem to believe that the current model, where users transfer songs from a computer to their phone using a wired connection, is not long for this world. Instead, these companies are coming up with various ways to dispense … Read more

The battle of the virtual guitar iPhone apps

If two data points make a trend, here's a new one: there will soon be two iPhone apps that promise to turn your humble mobile phone into a mobile electric-guitar rig, complete with multiple amps, effects, and microphones.

DJ and electronic music apps for the iPhone aren't much of a stretch--after all, a lot of electronic musicians have been using computers as their primary instrument since the 1990s, and the iPhone is as powerful as the highest-powered desktops from a decade ago.

But most guitarists are stubborn analog creatures, hunting vintage music shops and Craigslist for the perfect … Read more

Aviary launches free online loop creator

Creating digital audio has long been one of the best arguments for using locally installed software rather than a cloud service, but that's beginning to change. The latest entrant, launched Thursday, is a program called Roc, which lets you create simple 8-beat loops from a library of hundreds of sounds, all without leaving your Web browser.

Roc is the latest creation from Aviary, which offers a free set of Flash-based online applications for creating and editing content. Most of Aviary's tools are for graphics, but in September it launched the Myna audio editor, which lets you record and … Read more

HomePipe music streaming works but isn't pretty

In the wake of Google's acquisition and temporary burial of Simplify, Seattle-based HomePipe has launched a similar free service that lets users stream their full iTunes library over the air to their iPhone or Android phone.

HomePipe launched in March with a new take on remote computer access. While consumer services such as LogMeIn or corporate technologies like Microsoft's Remote Desktop Services offer full keyboard-video-mouse, or KVM, access to your computer, HomePipe reasoned that mobile-phone users mainly want their data--for example, to show pictures or read documents locked away on a home PC.

On Thursday, HomePipe updated its … Read more

Slacker iPhone app adds station caching

The latest update to the iPhone app for online radio service Slacker, which offers a combination of personalized radio based on particular artists and curated radio stations, just became available in the iTunes Marketplace.

The main advantage of the update, announced a couple weeks ago, is offline station caching, which lets you listen to stations even when you don't have a wireless data connection. It's been available in the Android and BlackBerry versions of the Slacker app since February, and it's a welcome addition to the iPhone version.

Caching is particularly useful if you spend lots of … Read more

Thumbplay comes to iPhone

Thumbplay Music launched an iPhone version of its music subscription service on Tuesday, making it the first such service available for the top three mobile-phone platforms in the United States: iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry.

I gave it a quick run-through on Tuesday morning, and it looks like Thumbplay has dramatically improved its service and desktop app since I tried the beta version on BlackBerry in March. The search engine works perfectly now, and some of the catalog gaps appear to have been filled, such as the full catalog of She and Him. I only had a couple of "misses&… Read more

What should Ballmer do with Zune?

After spending the last few years focusing on building a credible search engine and fixing Windows, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is now turning his eye, Sauron-like, toward Microsoft's consumer products.

On Tuesday, Microsoft announced that two longtime leaders in its Entertainment and Devices Division, President Robbie Bach and Chief Technical Officer J Allard, are stepping down. Although both executives are best known as the public faces of the Xbox, they also bear some responsibility for the Zune, Microsoft's portable media player and associated software and services. Bach was assigned to fix Microsoft's digital-media strategy in the mid-2000s, … Read more

Djay app lets you spin iTunes from your iPhone

Algoriddim's Djay is a $49.95 Mac application that lets you spin your iTunes library in a virtual two-turntable setup.

Djay's interface stays fairly faithful to the old-school turntablist tradition, with a crossfader, cue points (which let you mark a record at specific spots so you can move the stylus to the desired part of a song), and virtual "scratching," enabled by dragging your cursor across the vinyl on the screen. At the same time, Djay offers digital conveniences such as automatic beat matching and tempo synchronization. In addition, its Automix feature creates a mix on … Read more