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Universal record gives all your music that vinyl sound
So you've bought a turntable with hopes of hearing that warm vinyl sound, but you don't have a record collection just yet. What to do? If you're Jesse England, you 'cheat' using digital tunes. He recently built the Universal Record, a device that lets any Bluetooth audio source work with a record player by vibrating a vinyl disc. You can leave the needle stationary if you want relatively clean output, but get it moving and you'll hear crackles and pops -- a bit surreal when you're listening to songs from your phone. This is an artistic commentary on the "kinetic spectacle" of turntables, so you sadly can't buy a Universal Record of your own. Still, it's a pretty clever way to bring back that analog feel in a world where MP3s and internet streaming reign supreme.
Arduino-powered turntable plays the phases of the moon
This device created by student designers Yingjie Bei and Yifan Hu only looks like an artsy turntable, but it can't play your vinyl collection. Here's what it can do, though: show you the right moon phase for any particular day. When you input the date you want through its three knobs, the Arduino board inside it uses a programming language called Processing to do computations and identify the correct phase. After that's done, the Arduino moves the device's motors, which in turn move the flashlight. It then shines light upon a miniature cement moon, which shows the phase for the day from the operator's POV. If you think it sounds like a fun little project for your home planetarium, check out Bei's website, where you can see early sketches and in-progress pictures for more info. [Image credit: Brady Bel]
Copyright concerns hit Kickstarter campaign for wood turntable
Raise your hand if you remember the Kickstarter campaign for Silvan Audio Workshop's wood turntable. It's a sleek, ornamental design featuring a slab of wood, a glass platter, supporting spikes and high-end parts from UK audio manufacturer Rega. It struck a chord with some of our readers yesterday, and especially with Joel Scilley, a longtime turntable and audio gear manufacturer operating under the name Audiowood. He's been selling "Barky," a turntable just like Silvan Audio Workshop's, since 2009. Scilley claims that the Kickstarter design infringes on his copyright, and he's asked the campaign's owner, Kent Walter, to halt all crowdfunding. He's also filed a DMCA notice with Kickstarter, so far to no avail.
Hand-made wood turntables are the newest scratching post
Sure, your hip friends who live in that converted loft downtown have a record player -- but odds are they don't own an artisanal turntable crafted by a father-and-son team from the wood of an American black walnut tree. This is the type of turntable that Silvan Audio Workshop makes, and it's the type that the company is attempting to fund on Kickstarter right now. Kent Walter and his father seek $14,000 by March 22 to expand their workshops and produce turntables with more efficiency and speed, for all your home decor and record-spinning needs.
Casio's new DJ controllers aim to upgrade your next house party setlist
Casio makes a lot of keyboards. That's the company's primary contribution to music, and while it's a pretty big one, it's also looking to adapt to, well, what the youth have been listening to (and making) in recent years. To that end, it's launching two different devices better suited to dance music, hip-hop, electronica and more. There's the XW-DJ1, with a 7-inch scratch disc, and the XW-PD1, which combines a 16-pad sampler with a synthesizer, sequencer and effector. Both run off batteries, have built-in speakers and connect to your iPhone/iPad, PC or Mac through a proprietary cable. The idea is that it should be all you need to "DJ" for a party, though we'd advise adding some speakers to the arrangement. The XW-DJ1 DJ Controller will launch this month, priced at $299, while the XW-PD1 Groove Center (we'd probably drop the "Groove" there), will be available in early March for a pricier $399. Those looking to upgrade their next party playlist might want to read into the details, which are right after the break.
Turntable.fm to shut down its social DJ service in favor of live concert efforts
There was a moment when Turntable.fm was seemingly ready to usher in an era of social music, with virtual DJs leading the way. Unfortunately, that moment has passed; in light of a shrinking audience and high operating costs, Turntable.fm has announced that it will shut down its DJ service on December 2nd. The company will instead focus on Turntable Live, its social platform for streaming real-world concerts. It's a sad day for musical tastemakers, although the company is going out of its way to support fans. Users can export their playlists and tracks to services like Spotify, and the company is promising both a commemorative t-shirt as well as a "last day" party on the 2nd. If you have fond memories of spinning tunes for friends across the country, we'd suggest making room in your calendar.
Insert Coin: BubblePod clockwork turntable lets your phone capture 360-degree images
In Insert Coin, we look at an exciting new tech project that requires funding before it can hit production. If you'd like to pitch a project, please send us a tip with "Insert Coin" as the subject line. The problem with capturing panoramic stills with your phone is that you need to keep a steady motion when panning around, but we all know that only a robot can perform such feat perfectly. That's why this little BubblePod caught our attention. The device is essentially a mini clockwork turntable so no battery is required -- just wind it up, slip an iOS, Android or BB10 device into the silicone grip, fire up the BubblePix app and hit the BubblePod's release button for a steady 40-second rewind. The sample panoramic shots (or "bubbles") we saw have almost no visible stitching, and the app can simultaneously record an audio clip to capture the atmosphere as well. Better yet, in addition to its rubberized base, the BubblePod is also built with a universal tripod mount plus a wine bottle insert mount! This Kickstarter project will offer a unit if you pledge a minimum of £15 (about $23) for the limited early bird offer or £20 (about $31) later on, plus £5 (about $8) to ship outside the UK. Do check out the demo video after the break, and feel free to grab yourself a BubblePod before funding ends on July 9th. %Gallery-190789%
Turntable.fm releases Piki app, for music recommendations and streaming
Turntable.fm is one of the many social streaming music sites out there -- it allows you and your friends to stream music and even listen in together to your favorite albums and songs. The company already has its own standalone app for the App Store, but it's trying a new tactic now to grab attention in this increasingly crowded streaming market, releasing a new app called Piki (a misspelling of "picky," I guess) that's centered not just around listening to music, but also around sharing recommendations and favorites. Just like any other streaming app out there (Pandora, Slacker and Rdio are all popular variants on this), Piki lets you pull up radio stations that will automatically fill with music and stream it out to wherever you happen to be. The difference here is that instead of coming from a computer or even a radio producer, these stations are filled with music recommended by your friends and other members of the service. You can provide reactions to the music as well, and then those picks are incorporated in other users' music, too. I know Pandora does use user preferences to rate its various music streams, and while Slacker's big claim is that they're using actual radio producers to pick some playlists, this is definitely an interesting idea, especially if you've got friends using the app with some excellent taste in music. And the fact that Turntable.fm is branding it under a completely different name shows that things are getting hectic in the streaming business. They're doing whatever they can to nail down an audience of listeners. If you're down to put an ear on some new tunes recommended by your fellow listeners, Piki is currently available on the App Store for free.
Pioneer intros Platinum Edition CDJ-2000nexus, matching mixer and remixer
DJs and even nightclubs don't always get to choose the decks for gigs or studio sessions. In the event they do, however, they'll likely want a rig to remember -- and Pioneer is more than willing to sate that desire with new Platinum Editions of the CDJ-2000nexus CD turntable, DJM-900nexus mixer and RMX-1000 Remix Station. All three are similar to existing equipment on the inside, but come with an extra-reflective chrome finish that's bound to be noticed, if more by the DJ than the audience on the dance floor. They'll also be harder to find when they're shipping in limited quantities from the outset; the mirror-like treatment is coming to just 4,000 units of the CDJ-2000nexus, and 2,000 each of the DJM-900nexus and RMX-1000. Scratch artists looking for full-on flash will need to buy two turntables and a mixer together as part of a $8,499 Platinum Edition set due in February, although those wanting a small taste of the experience can buy the remixer by itself for $1,199.
Ion reveals digital conversion turntables for iOS, PC and Mac, we go hands-on (update: video)
Vinyl may be the format of choice for discerning audio connoisseurs, but those harboring love for both digital and analog options may have their interest piqued by Ion's latest lineup of turntables. The iLP Lightning takes a traditional turntable, replete with RCA outputs, and adds a 30-pin dock connector that's compatible with Cupertino's Lightning to 30-pin adapter. Leveraging a free app, the table converts a record's audio to MP3 files, separates it into tracks and saves it to docked iOS devices. If you'd rather not have songs sent to your iDevice of choice, the rig also includes a USB cable for routing tunes to a Mac or PC with a gratis desktop app. Ion is also serving up the Pure LP, which removes the 30-pin dock from the equation. As for availability, the iOS-compatible tables are expected this summer for $99.99 in white, red, blue, black and a woodgrain finish. Analog diehards can have some fun too with the Live LP table, which packs stereo speakers, standard RCA outputs, a natural wood finish and nothing in the way of digital conversion. Click on to the break for photos and the full press release. Update: We've just given Ion's record player a test drive, and we've posted the footage after the break. Initially, we had some concern about how anything larger than an iPad Mini might dock to the hardware, but it handled one of Apple's miniature tablets well enough. Audio quality from the turntable -- at least from what this editor could hear over the din of other journalists -- passed the ear test. Though we weren't able to try out the desktop experience for converting audio from vinyl records to MP3 files, the conversion experience on the iPad itself was a breeze. Follow all the latest CES 2013 news at our event hub.
Philips' Mini Hi-Fi System lets you dock iPhones, spins them into turntables
The iDevice clique's had no shortage of options when it comes to choosing DJ-friendly gear. Now one of the latest peripherals to enter the spinning market is Philips' Mini Hi-Fi System, which boasts a modest 300W total output power and offers a cozy turntable canvas that has docking room for a couple of iPhones -- in theory, iPod touches should be okay to fit as well. Furthermore, the beat-inducing apparatus is also compatible with that rather popular djay application for iOS, making it easier to mix, scratch and blast all your favorite tunes in one place. Philips launched this Mini Hi-Fi add-on a while back, but today it's finally placing it up for grabs in the UK for a hefty £300, or about $470 if you're this side of the Atlantic. Be sure to click on past the jump to quickly gaze at a largely appealing pic gallery. %Gallery-161543%
Denon teases new SC2900 DJ controller and media player, hopes to get heads spinning (video)
As the world of digital DJing offers those who spin increasingly individual configurations, there's still a dedicated crowd who like to keep it strictly "ones and twos." Denon hears this, and is hoping to snag some of those faithful with its latest SC2900 DJ media player. From the tease video (after the break) it looks like it's pitting itself against Pioneer's CDJ900 and CDJ2000 models. There's a 7-inch platter (Denon's first without a motor,) jazzed up with LEDs for cue and marker points. This can be used to get hands on with CDs (audio and MP3,) USB drives, music direct from the companion "Engine" software (i.e. hosted on a Mac or PC,) and shared media from other compatible networked players. Other goodies include four hot cues, native support for Traktor (and other) DJ software over MIDI, a "slip mode" made popular by the CDJ900 for keeping tracks in the mix even when scratching, and library browsing via iPad (though we're not sure if it's anything more than that). Pricing and availability should get played out soon, in the meantime you might want to start boning up on those old DMC routines.
Cogoo's Turntable Rider puts the 'mix' in BMX, 'awesome' in these videos
What if a company built a mixer for your BMX bike? What if said mixer could wirelessly control the music you're grooving to while riding? What if we had two videos to prove that such luxuries do, in fact, exist? Japan's own Cogoo has gone well above the call of duty with its latest concoction, the Turntable Rider. Put simply (or as simply as possible), it's a multi-part system that enables a bike to become a DJing machine; the more complex the tricks, the 'better' the mix. Reportedly, the bike's own wheels act as jog wheels, the brakes act as a beat pad and there's even a gyroscopic sensor that doubles as a fader pad. No word on a set price or ship date, but it'll be making the rounds at events starting with the 2012 Kaikoo Popwave Festival. Enough chatter -- head on past the break and mash play a couple of times. Go ahead and prepare those around you to cease working and do the same.
PC Fan hack lets you scra... scra... scratch analog audio, ah-yeah (video)
Digital DJ controllers let would-be grandmasters get up to all sorts of fancy new tricks, but if you're one of those old dogs who can't be taught, then this PC-fan-come-DJ-turntable might tickle your fancy. Connected to an old-school personal cassette via an Arduino, with a little voltage level smoothing in the mix, moving the fan "scratches" the audio, by controlling the speed of the tape player. The initial plan was to have the fan spinning with the music, like a real turntable, but as you'll know if you've ever caught your finger in one of these things, it's probably best it didn't work out. Despite its home-made charms, one final flourish is VU style LEDs for some mixer-style visual feedback. Alas, there's no built in cross-fader, so don't start work on that DMC routine just yet.
Our exclusive preview of djay 4 for Mac - Now available
Updated: djay 4 is now available from the Algoriddim site or Mac App Store. Introductory pricing is just $19.99 (normally the app is $50). I know we've covered djay quite a bit this year but this update, coming soon, is a pretty huge one. We were lucky enough to get a sneak peek at djay 4. I happen to like djay, which is available for iOS and Mac, because it reminds me of when I first used Premiere -- version 4 on an 8500. Except instead of going from cutting film on a big machine to editing video pixels, you're taking physical vinyl record spinning and scratching and translating it to digital audio. Djay takes a complicated setup and physical skills and turns them into a software interface, with digitized shortcuts for dummies like me. Djay, as a simulation of a dj's turntables, is nearly perfect. There's no substitute for actually touching vinyl, of course, especially if you've seen masters of the art and I'm not saying djay is magically going to make mashups. Djay does have its place for pros and amateurs alike, with some practice (and natural talent, one hopes). The tools, already strong to begin with since launch, just got a lot better in version 4. Check out our previous coverage of djay to get the basics. The new features are impressive for live and recording artists. Here's a look at some of them. Updated UI and Lion, iCloud integration The UI looked great already, but now everything is on one screen, easily accessible, with better graphics than before and fullscreen support in Lion. There's a light and dark library mode so dj's don't go blind queueing up songs. iCloud support is for the Mac App Store version and iOS versions of djay, allowing sync of all user generated metadata like cue points, edited BPM, etc... Harmonic awesomeness One of djay's coolest features has been the ability to analyze a song and match another's beats for mashups. Version 4 for the Mac adds impressive key detection that can distinguish between major and minor keys. You can even filter your entire iTunes library by key so it's easier to make a mashup to begin with (see the photo below, which allows you to pick a key). Note that this will take a while depending on your iTunes library, and crank your fans up depending on your Mac, so djay allows you to limit the analysis to a single playlist if you like. Further, you can adjust a song on the turntable, pressing a button to match the key of song A to song B just as you would the tempo. While no harmony matching is perfect, I found the results were more than acceptable. Provided you know what you're doing, djay is a powerful mashup generator. There's a built-in recording manager, but the .m4a files djay creates can be accessed in Finder and simply added to iTunes so you can play your music on your iDevices. DJ support Live dj's are going to love djay 4 even more. There's a full "MIDI learn" system now so you can program djay to work with your gear, enhanced controller support (you can tweak just about everything), and you can export play history as PDFs. There's also more control over pre-cueing, and a mic with echo and pitch controls... But that's not all! I could see using djay just as a replacement for iTunes if you routinely dj parties at your pad (bachelor or otherwise). The Automix feature was great before, allowing djay to choose songs, spin them up, crossfade between them or match on beats. Now you can manage your queue as well -- which is also handy if you have to take a break as a dj. Just line up what you want in the queue window and djay will handle it. When you want, you can drop easily into another playlist and keep going. But if you are a real dj that likes to spin records and uses samples and effects, djay has improved support for both. There's a handy sample manager which allows you to sort and use them on the fly, and there's a Live Sampler. The Live Sampler allows you to record a sample any time, just by holding down the mic button in the in the sample bank's sample list. As you have six sample banks available at once (and practically unlimited samples behind each button, although you'll need to toggle between them) this give you ample opportunity to play around. Or be annoying, depending on your expertise level. The Live Sampler section of the UI switches around, depending on what you need. There's also a bounce loop mode that lets you set up simple repeating sections which are easy to toggle on and off by using a button up top near the record button. New to version 4 is the enhanced bounce loop mode which is basically a set of shortcuts for 1/16 up to 2 second loop times. If you've ever heard what sounds like a record skipping? Well now you can do that in easy increments by just pressing on a button. It's great. FX control djay 4 adds some awesome realtime audio effects to your arsenal. These aren't replacements for a full keyboard or sampler, but they are super handy and fun to use. Standard FX include a couple of effects banks, which each have the requisite flanger, echo, reverb, phaser and whatnot. Then there's the Instant FX, which are presets like Twist which back the music up while applying audio effects or crush which sounds like a bit crusher with added effects. Then there's my favorite, the 2D FX pad which allows you to control multiple parameters in realtime, with your finger. Whatever you chose in the fx bank earlier will appear here, and you can tweak the parameters by sliding around a small box with your finger (trackpad) or mouse. I'm sure a real dj could do amazing things with this. The future? As with any proper dj software there are shortcuts for just about everything. There's even multitouch trackpad control, with keyboard modifiers to do things like pitch-bending on the fly. Not only that, but the trackpad is 1:1 multitouch, so use two fingers and where you touch it mimics on the screen. What's exciting about apps like djay (and why I like to cover them) is that, like Premiere once did for me with video editing, they make a formerly cumbersome and complex method of expression slightly more accessible. Of course, Premiere and other digital NLE's didn't make one a better video editor, just as there were plenty of desktop publishing atrocities in the 80s (thanks, Print Shop!), but programs like djay make the tools of aspiring dj's more accessible, more affordable and in some ways more powerful than their real-world counterparts. A dj that I know (who has a fancy music degree as well) saw djay and remarked that it was all too easy for kids to just pick it up and make simplistic mashups. I argued that this was a good thing, in the end, because just as with video, people will tend to watch (or listen to, in this case) what they feel is best. If they like sucky mashups, have at it. By contrast, the guy behind this saw djay and immediately saw how he could incorporate it into his musical workflow. I think any tool that gives you this much power but makes using it fun deserves a look. Djay 4 is an impressive app on its own. Couple it with the iOS versions and you've got even more fun, and both are what I would consider pro-level tools at a great value. If you're itching to get your hands on djay 4, you can sign up here for updates. Djay 4 is now available!
Feats Per Minute record playing bike helps you kickstand out the jams (video)
If you're like us, you spend most of your waking hours attempting to figure out a way to enjoy your vinyl collection on the go. Feats Per Minute offers a simple and handy solution, incorporating a turntable onto the rear wheel of a bicycle -- you spin the record player as you ride, and the sound plays out of an old timey horn on the back. There were a few obstacles to overcome: like getting the record to play vertically and making sure the needle skips as little as possible while riding the thing. As evidenced in the video below, the team managed to overcome these problems. However, you have to maintain a constant pace if you want the record to play right, of course -- and as for the record itself, we recommend staying away from, say, that mint condition copy of The Velvet Underground's first LP. It may not travel well.
Gemini's FirstMix USB DJ controller now available for novice mixers
Seasoned DJs have plenty of ways to hone their electronica acumen, but for less experienced audiophiles, Gemini has just unleashed FirstMix -- a USB-based controller designed to help the everyman get in touch with his inner Pete Tong. The device's layout is simple enough, with two scratch wheels, rotaries and a cross fader. All you have to do is connect the panel to your laptop, select the tunes you'd like to mash up from your iTunes library and use FirstMix's touch-sensitive jog control to scratch the night away. To help you get started, Gemini will ship its new controller with MixVibes' Cross LE DJ software, but it's compatible with Virtual DJ and other mixing programs, as well. If you're interested in taking FirstMix for a spin, you can find one at retailers like Musician's Friend, for about $100. Otherwise, you could just head past the break for a demo video, along with a full press release.
Mopho DJ uses your iPhone to track turntable movement (instead of your movements)
We have to admit, we never thought of this one -- and it's pretty, pretty slick. Instead of using time-coded vinyl to interface your turntable with your computer as with Final Scratch Pro or Serato Scratch, Nicholas J. Bryan's Mopho DJ uses an iPhone. That's right, our man at Stanford University literally affixes his smartphones to his decks via a perspex disc and some sort of adhesive. The smartphones each run an app which sends accelerometer and gyroscope data to a computer, which then adjusts playback of your music accordingly. It's still a work-in-progress at the moment, but if you're in Oslo the first week in June make sure you check it out at the NIME (New Interfaces for Musical Expression) conference. This is definitely the kind of iOS location tracking we can get behind! Check it out on video after the break.
iPhone turntable concept brings dropped calls to your record collection
Any audiophile worth their weight in 180 gram vinyl will gladly tell you that nothing sounds quite as good as a record. Unfortunately, the format has a few major drawbacks, like a lack of portability and the fact that it really sucks at making phone calls. The iPhone, on the other hand, is light years ahead of those fronts -- well, one of out two ain't bad. This new concept from designer Olivier Meynard offers the best of both worlds, embedding a horizontal iPhone dock next to a wheel of steel, so you can play back your favorite LP through the built-in speakers and encode those tracks as MP3s, which are uploaded to your handset as it charges. Finally, a way to turn your long out of print prog rock albums into ringtones, as they were meant to be heard.
TDK's new line of Boomboxes and audio gear now officially available
TDK has slowly been rolling out some of its new audio gear since it first showed off the line at CES in January, but it's now finally officially announced that the whole lot is readily available across the US and Canada. That includes both its two-speaker and three-speaker Boomboxes, its "room-filling" Sound Cube, a set of high-end headphones, and even a belt-drive turntable -- those range in price from $249 for the headphones to $499 for the three-speaker boombox. Of course, while TDK is boasting quite a bit about the sound of the gear, it's also placing a heavy emphasis on their appearance, for which it can thank design firm Ziba. Don't miss the more coverage links below for a bit of insight into how it crafted the products.
