One reason a music fan might want an expensive car is that many of them adjust the music volume automatically based on the speed of the car. That way, when you accelerate to 75 m.p.h. on the highway, your music gets louder to compete with the wind, road, and engine noise. After exiting, you can…
Any artist can decide whether or not to include their music in the big music subscription services, just like any app developer can decide whether to sell their app for iOS devices. Thom Yorke is the latest artist to make waves in the former area, pulling his new band Atoms for Peace from Spotify, Rdio,…
The following is a guest post from Peter Kirn of CreateDigitalMusic, which focuses on music apps for creating sounds. It’s a bit outside of our usual scope, but this software looks pretty far-out. Thanks, Peter. If I’ve said it once, I’ve said it a thousand times: manipulating sound presets should be as intuitive and powerful…
Synesthesia, a neurological malady that makes senses meant for one part of the brain be understood by another part, could be the only medical condition music fans might want to suffer from. The most notorious variety of Synesthesia is “Chromesthesia,” which causes a person to see colors representing the sounds they’re hearing, with fun-sounding implications for music….
We often think of listening to music with headphones as creating “a soundtrack for our lives.” But when you think about it, the music in films usually plays in the background to enhance the setting, not drown it out. Unless you live in a persistent montage scene (where the music comes to the fore) or…
Between Google’s Moog-inspired playable doodle (Moogle?) and our editor’s nomination for MTV’s NILF award, it’s safe to say it’s been an exciting week for the music nerds at Evolver.fm. In other, less-nerdy music news, American Idol just finished up its eleventh season. I don’t know about you, but I had almost forgotten about that show; apparently it…
We hear a lot about the potential of Apple’s “magical” new devices to change the way people create new things. Some of this boils down to ace-level marketing, but when this reputation holds true, the results can be spectacular. Meet SoundPrism Pro 2.0 ($16), a revamped iOS instrument that justifies the iPad’s large touchscreen size…
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA — The Slacker interactive radio service is showing off a slew of new stuff at the Consumer Electronics Show this year, including a customized version of the app for the iPad, Nokia phones, and the high-speed-data Verizon 4G LTE phone, whose high bandwidth allows Slacker to download a complete song to the…
Evolver.fm has itself evolved; its editor edits Spotify Insights, which explores music and how people listen to it through data, while Evolver.fm focuses mostly on the music hacking scene (Music Hack Day projects and other next-generation ideas). If you know about a music hack or fledgling app we might want to cover, please send us a tip. The winter break…
For music fans, gesture music controls should mean the ability to skip songs and more by, for example, tapping a button on the steering wheel and waving a hand. Gesture controls mean something else for musicians or anyone else trying to make music: the ability to shape, pan, record, trigger, play, scrub, and add effects…
I’ve spent the better waking part of the past 17 years reading and writing words on a screen, which is fine. It’s my job, and I like it. Lots of us stare at screens for much of the day for our job, school, or whatever — and then we watch another, larger screen that night,…
So far, CES 2014 has not disappointed in terms of big news. Apple notoriously declines to attend CES, and now Google has gone and announced a significant partnerships with four major automakers and a chipmaker to put Android in millions or maybe hundreds of millions of car dashboards. Audi, Honda, Hyundai, and GM will put…
This is the year many people will make a decision that will inform their lives for years: How they intend to play music wirelessly in their homes. There are a number of reasons this is coming to a head in 2014. Add another to the list: the AllPlay platform from Qualcomm. These apps, devices, and…
An anonymous source cited by 9to5Mac claims that Google is working on a Google Watch, as rumored — a “fifth screen,” if you will, to complement the computer, television, smartphone, and tablet. The smart watch makes sense, from the consumer electronic industry’s perspective, if only for size reasons, which is one reason Samsung already has…
For musicians who use iOS devices to record or produce music, upgrading to iOS 7 on an iPad, iPhone, or iPod Touch is a bad idea until Apple fixes the bug that’s crashing recording sessions when someone calls you or an alert appears on the phone (we are not the only ones saying this). However, Apple’s latest…
