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YouTube debuts royalty-free music library, get your free tunes right here
Do all your awesome dance-troupe videos keep getting pulled from YouTube for copyright violation? If so, there's finally an answer. The video-sharing site has just announced the launch of a new audio library, with 150 royalty-free music tracks for use on your videos. You can browse the library direct from your video manager page, and sounds can be sorted by genre, mood, instrument and so on. YouTube's even making a call out to musicians that would be interested in having their work added to the list. Those moves of yours? The world's not ready for them yet.
SuperSync 5 will add support for iTunes Match
SuperSync is a really impressive app that you've probably already heard about if you've ever tried to keep iTunes libraries between various computers synced together. It basically scans your iTunes library as you add to it, and then tracks different libraries across Macs and PCs to make sure that they're all the same (or at least that they all follow whatever rules you've set up for them). And now, SuperSync is adding support for iTunes Match. SuperSync will help iTunes find the best quality copies of those songs and sync them to any other computers you've set up on the system. It's another bit of powerful functionality in an already powerful app. SuperSync is available from the website for US$22.95 for the ability to sync between two computers.
Daily iPhone App: Bandito scans your music library to deliver personalized music news
Bandito is an iPhone-based aggregator for music news that has a twist. Instead of a mass-produced feed, the app scans your iTunes library and delivers you personalized news based on the artists you listen to most. On first launch, the app asks for permission to scan your iTunes library. Once you agree, the scan takes less than a minute and you're presented with a list of blog posts and reviews about your favorite bands. If you want to stay current with music happenings, there's also a "Hotlist" containing news about the top bands and artists. The app includes a viewer so you can read the news right inside the app which is a nice touch. There's also an option to open the article in mobile Safari and email the link if you want to share the info with friends. There's no social network integration so sharing via email is the best you're going to get. Bandito does exactly what it says, but the results you get may vary. If you have a library of older songs, the news you receive could be several years old. More contemporary listeners will enjoy the benefit of receiving the information that's only a few days or a few weeks old. The app is a joint project between the Public Radio Exchange and The Echo Nest, a music intelligence company whose music engine powers apps from MTV, the BBC and more. Bandito is available for free from the App Store. A $1.99 in-app upgrade will give you unlimited news, reviews and blog posts. [Via Mashable]
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.
App review: Planetary for iPad
The iPad's music player hasn't changed much since its debut, and unlike its desktop counterpart, it also lacks a built-in music visualizer for your mesmerization. Luckily, for the folks who are seeking ways to spice up their iPad music experience, you now have a new option: Planetary, by Bloom Studio. As you can tell by the name and the screenshot above, what we have here is a visually compelling app for exploring your tablet's music library. It's very straightforward: each artist or band is shown as a star, surrounded by albums in the form of orbiting planets, and then you have individual tracks displayed as moons orbiting each album. During playback, each track leaves behind a trail on its orbit to indicate its play time, though you can hide the orbit lines (and labels) if you them too distracting. To choose other albums or artists, the good old pinch-to-zoom or the simple tapping on other 3D objects will move you between the moons and constellations, or you can just tap on the bottom-center button to jump straight to the letter selector for artists. Obviously, the former's more fun within the first few hours, but after awhile we found ourselves preferring the quicker option to skip the mellow animation. Head past the break for our full impression and demo video. %Gallery-122989%
iOS 4 adds direct access to iTunes library, iPhone DJ apps about to get crazy
Although there's been no shortage of iPhone DJ apps in the past few years, they've remained fairly niche, since Apple didn't allow devs official access to the iPod music library -- mobile DJs needed to upload a second separate music library per app, and that's no fun at all. Looks like that's about to change, though: one of the 1500 new APIs in iOS 4 provides direct access to the iPod library, meaning music apps of all kinds can play your tracks in any wacky way they want -- including, yes, scratching them. The first app to support the new API in the store is Flare Scratch, which is a relatively simple scratch app -- we just gave it a shot and yes, it does indeed load tracks from the iPod library and let you scratch 'em. There's a bit of a wait when loading up a new track, though, so it's not totally fluid to use in anything but a hey-this-is-fun context, but we're betting we'll see more serious DJ apps hit with smoother transitions soon enough -- and we can't wait to see what devs do once iOS 4 hits the iPad and they've got more room to work with. Video after the break.
