8 Free, Cross-Platform Apps for Musicians

Looking for some new and interesting software to whet your appetite? While these software programs are not necessarily Live oriented they are off the beaten path and could help you with a spur of inspiration.

Traverso

Traverso is a lightweight but powerful DAW that works on Windows, Mac OS X and Linux. Professionals who’ve tried this software comment that despite some strange interface decisions (such as having to hold shift and click to move the playhead), it’s a viable option for those looking for a free alternative.

Ardour

Ardour runs on Mac OS X and Linux making it cross-platform only to an extent, but this app, despite not running on the most ubiquitous system of them all, has grown in popularity and has quite a vocal and happy user base.

Audacity

Every studio, home or professional, needs a good dedicated audio editor to run alongside the DAW. Audacity fills this role perfectly. You could even make a demo of a full song using Audacity, with a bit of work, though I wouldn’t recommend it! I actually tried to do this four or five years ago - we got something usable out of it, but let’s just say it wasn’t one of those projects where you use a take or two from the demo.

Hydrogen

While Hydrogen bills itself as an advanced drum sequencer for GNU/Linux, it’s also available on Windows and Mac OS X. If you’ve got the samples, there’s nothing to stop you from using Hydrogen as a sequencer, but it really shines when you’re putting together programmed drum tracks.

MidiSwing

MidiSwing is a very lightweight, minimalist MIDI sequencer. There’s not a whole lot of fiddling to do with MidiSwing because of its simplicity, which means the geek in you will be disappointed but you’ll be able to get to work quicker, and get more done. Perhaps this is the kind of interface you need to compose your tune before importing it into a more complicated sequencer—if you’re the type who fiddles with synthesizers for a few hours before writing a single note, this might solve your productivity problems.

Frinika

While Frinika’s website could be a little friendlier, this sequencer also runs on Java, so it’s totally cross-platform. Despite the fact that it’s only reached version 0.5, it shows a lot of promise and it seems to be more advanced than MidiSwing, so it’s definitely worth checking out and having a play with.

Finale NotePad

As much as we all hate notation, sometimes it’s a necessary evil. Perhaps you’re licensing a song to a publisher who needs a lead sheet, and you don’t have the software to handle the job.

While Finale’s NotePad isn’t open source like most of the applications listed here, it is both free and cross-platform, with versions available for Windows and Mac OS X.

MuseScore

Since Finale NotePad doesn’t cover Linux users, we can’t leave without providing an option that does. MuseScore is available for both Linux and Windows.

MuseScore handles MIDI, features WYSIWIG notation editing, and a built-in sequencer and synthesizer so you can check that your notation sounds correct (definitely a plus if notation is not somewhere you usually go).

via Blog.AudioJungle.net

Spencer Keeton Cunningham Live 6.8.08 @ el rincon

Spencer Keeton Cunningham live @ el rincon, SF 6.8.08 from Spencer Keeton Cunningham on Vimeo.


via Matrixsynth.blogspot.com

Upgrade Your Old Sampler with SCSI to Compact Flash

 

 

 

 

 

 

Upgrade  your Old Sampler with SCSI to Compact Flash

Do you have an old sampler that is beginning to collect a little dust because it doesn't have the sample memory that you need these days? Well for about $100 you can pick up the MCDisk-2 media card drive. It allows you to replace your old SCSI memory with Compact Flash cards to boost your memory up to 16GB. The unit comes as an external unit, but can be mounted inside many of the samplers listed.

Korg Triton Classic, Triton Studio, Triton LE, Triton Rack, Triton Pro

Akai MPC60, MPC60 II, MPC2000, MPC2000XL, MPC3000 (requires the Vailixi 3.50 OS), S1000, S1100, S2000, S2800, S3000, CD3000, S3200, S3200XL, MPC4000,  S5000, S6000, Z4/Z8

Yamaha Motif 6, Motif 7, Motif 8, RS7000, PSR9000, EX5, EX7

Ensoniq EPS, EPS 16+, ASR-10, ASR-88

EMU Emax SE/HD, ESI-32, ESI-2000, ESI-4000, E4k, E5000, E6400, E64, EIII, EIIIxp, EIV, E4XT Ultra, E-Synth

Roland XV-5080, S760, S770

Kurzweil K2000, K2000VP, K2vx, K2vxS, K2000R, K2000RS, K2500X, K2500XS, K2500S, K2500R, K2500RS, K2600X, K2600XS, K2600S, K2600R, K2600RS, K2661

I personally love the concept, but I am curious as to how far your mileage will go. From my understanding many of these old hardware samplers have memory limitations built into their firmware.

via SonicState.com

Create Your Own Daft Punk EL Suit

How to Create Your Own Daft Punk EL Suit

You love Daft Punk's live shows, right? Who doesn't with their amazing visuals, giant pyramids and outstanding costumes. While it may cost you $65,000 to buy your own Daft Punk style helmet you can create your own EL suit for considerably less. Instructables.com has a great tutorial up for those DIY'ers who have the time and patience to build the suit. even better is the fact that this little DIY tutorial is lead by the very same person who created the original suits for Daft Punk.   How about that?

via Engadget.com

OpenStomp: Open Source Guitar Pedal?

 OpenStomp: Open Source Guitar Pedal

Now here is an interesting concept that I thought we would have seen sooner. Take some standard off the shelf hardware, add some open source hardware, throw in a custom interface and you have yourself a great musical instrument at a fraction of the price of proprietary hardware. The Open Stomp is an open source stomp pedal that I presume basically takes software effects and puts them in a box. It uses the Coyote-1 sound effects processor and includes a Windows-based workbench for making sounds. No more details on the hardware specs, but it does have 1MB of storage (1MB? That is all?). 

Lets see how this turns out.

via Crunchgear.com

Korg Nano Control Surfaces

 

Korg Nano Control Surfaces (Japanese Website)

Quite a lot of buzz going on around the net as of late regarding Korg's latest announcement of the nanoKEY, nanoCONTROL and the nanoPAD. These are three new mini control surfaces to be used with laptops.  Here are specs on the three little devices

• nanoKEY: 25 keys, transmitting either as MIDI notes or (via a separate mode) Control Change (CC)  messages. Octave shift (natch). Pitch, modulation. And it’s supposed to be velocity-sensitive, too, although we’ll have to get our hands on one to see how sensitive it is.
• nanoPAD: 12 pads, supposedly inheriting the terrific sensitivity and feel of the padKONTROL. Chord Trigger. Control Change mode (as with nanoKEY). There’s even an X/Y touch pad with roll and flam mode, favorite features of the padKONTROL.
• nanoKONTROL: 9 faders, 9 knobs, 18 switches, transport controls. (No, really.) MIDI notes, 168 CC messages. There are even attack and decay times for the switches, allowing them to work as faders, filter controls, effects settings, and the like – something I’d love to see on other (full-sized) controllers.

The concept seems cool enough. The question I guess really comes down to the build quality and capability of the actual devices. From the pictures they look rather cheap, especially the keyboard. Also while the concept is great they are still divided up into three separate devices. With the size that small why not combine them all into one control surface? Or even better allow users to somehow "click" them together like Legos into a quasi modular setup. You can at least only use one USB port that way.  Certainly users would want everything on these and not have to pick and choose.

So would anyone out there find these useful or are they just too cheap? Personally an M-Audio Oxygen 8 seems perfect adequate to me for mobile rig stuff, especially if you get the one with the built in audio interface.

Lukatoyboy Live At De Peper In Amsterdam

.:Lukatoyboy Live At De Peper In Amsterdam:.\

This week we break up the ambient progression that we have been having with a turn in direction for an 8-bit style gameboy and nanoloop set. This one is performed by LukatoyBoy from Amsterdam. You can find more of his music over at Myspace.com/lktyby

ArtistData.com - Organize your online networks

 

.:ArtistData.com:.

Through my news feeds today I happened to come across a new website which seems very topical to the recent posts I have upped on the blog regarding online social communities. We all know that there are plenty of social websites out there and getting in on them can be extremely beneficial to one as an artist. ArtistData.com is a website which will synchronize your information between all of these different social website such as Myspace, Virb. Purevolume and more. The idea is very novel and could be extremely time saving if it picks up some more. The website is currently in a beta form and appears to only really sync your performance date information, but I am hoping that it continues to grow and allows one to eventually sync all sorts of information like your artist Bio, blog/news and so forth. 

 

If you are a heavy user of social networking sites, give this one a look as it may help you save quite a bit of time.

Drat 002 Live Ambient Set at Green Air

.:Drat 002 Live Ambient Set at Green Air:.

This week we have another live ambient set courtesy of Archive.org. The ambient guys really now how to post their stuff online and here we have Drat 002 with another very ethereal set to put you in a calming mood. This one was performed live on green air May