The release of the propellerhead Reason 5 and Record 1.5 has my head spinning with possibilities. I was uncertain how this combo would improve my recording life but it is a sure fire upgrade. Reason 4 and Record were already argueably the best digital workstation software to date but now with new modules it has been taken to the next level. This Article is intended for people who already use Reason and Record. If you would like to find out more, Propellerheads has some great videos on their site.

http://www.propellerheads.se/products/reason/index.cfm?fuseaction=get_article&article=micro-tutorials

My Favorite Features

Blocks: Record, Reason

Blocks introduce a new ways to organize your songs. You create sections/blocks into verse, chorus, bridge or anyway you see fit. You create instances of those Blocks and any change you make distributes to those instances. This Really helps cut down copy and pasting my chorus or hooks every time I make a change.

Live Sampling: Record, Reason

This brings me back to the old days of making my own samples. For along time if you did not have Recycle cutting up samples and mapping them to a device was a pain in the a$$ but now with live sampling it is an easy and creative was to make and manipulate your on samples in any sample loading device. This feature still has some ruff edges but is very useful. I still am waiting for the day I have recycle incorporated in to the program.

Dr. Octo REX Loop Player: Record, Reason

This new rex player is like having 8 rex players and allows you to do some awesome beat juggling. There is also more control over the slices which can be used to pan, reverse and filter.

Notable Features

The Neptune Pitch: Record

Call me old school but I hate the auto-tune sound in its current form, however that will not keep me from using this great tool. I already have found grate ways to use it that don’t come off like this over produced candy sound that non singers use to get by. This can be used quite creatively as it can plug in to anything and can be driving by your midi controller. The manipulation of pitch opens many doors to creative performances and yes you can also sound like T-Pain.

Kong Drum Designer: Record, Reason

The Kong is a 16 pad and 16 drum synthesis, physical modeling, sampling, REX loops, beat machine. With this device you can get the exact sound your looking for and you can build your drum sounds based on any of the nine different drum modules. With it’s automation analog support sound generators, effects, flexible routing, multiple hit types you can spend all day playing with this thing.

If you already own Record and Reason you only have to upgrade to Reason 5 to get the Record 1.5 update which is great!

My crew and I just got our hands on the Latest 7D and T2i cameras and put them through their paces in Oakland’s Historic China Town. With only a Few Lenses, Tripod, and a GlideTrack we were able to make an impressive short film that captured this lively area. There is no noticeable difference between the 2 cameras video quality. The 7D does have a better build quality, more ISO setting and more photography options but if you looking to shoot and your on a budget the T2i is a strong option. The t2i can allow you to purchase more lenses with the money saved from not getting 7D. All and All I love them both and would not trade one for the other. View for your self.

Our latest work for Perfect Fitness is now live on

Google Nexus One vs Motorola Droid

Below are some of the comparison tech spec between the Nexus One in to the Droid. Unfortunately these comparisons are not always 1to 1.

Size and weight:

Nexus:
(H X W X D)
119mm x 59.8mm x 11.5mm

Weight:
130 grams w/battery
100g w/o battery

Droid:
(H X W X D)
2.4 x 4.6 x .5 in.; 60.00 x 115.80 x 13.70 mm

Weight:
6 oz.; 169 grams

———————————————————————————-
Form Factor:

Nexus:
Touch Screen Only

Droid:
Touch Screen/Slider

———————————————————————————-
Operating system:
Nexus:
Android Mobile Technology Platform 2.1 (Eclair)

Droid:
Android™ 2.0

———————————————————————————-
Power and battery

Nexus:
Removable 1400 mAH battery
Charges at 480mA from USB, at 980mA from supplied charger

Droid:
BATTERY TYPE
1400 mAh Li Ion
STANDBY TIME3
up to 270 hrs.

———————————————————————————-
Display:

Nexus:
3.7-inch (diagonal) widescreen WVGA AMOLED touchscreen
800 x 480 pixels
100,000:1 typical contrast ratio
1ms typical response rate

Droid:
3.7-in.; WVGA (480 x 854 pixels); 16:9 widescreen

———————————————————————————-
Processor:

Nexus:
Qualcomm QSD 8250 1 GHz

Droid:
Arm® Cortex™ A8 processor 550 mHz

———————————————————————————-

Nexus:
AAC LC/LTP, HE-AACv1 (AAC+), HE-AACv2 (enhanced AAC+) Mono/Stereo standard bit rates up to 160 kbps and sampling rates from 8 to 48kHz, AMR-NB 4.75 to 12.2 kbps sampled @ 8kHz, AMR-WB 9 rates from 6.60 kbit/s to 23.85 kbit/s sampled @ 16kHz., MP3 Mono/Stereo 8-320Kbps constant (CBR) or variable bit-rate (VBR), MIDI SMF (Type 0 and 1), DLS Version 1 and 2, XMF/Mobile XMF, RTTTL/RTX, OTA, iMelody, Ogg Vorbis, WAVE (8-bit and 16-bit PCM)

Droid:
AAC, H.263, H.264, MP3, MPEG-4, WAV, WMA, eAAC+, OGG, AMR WB, AMR NB, AAC+, MIDI

With news of the Nexus release of googles mobile device the web and blogosphere begin to light up. The main question on the minds of most cell phone users is, will this phone finally beat out the offerings from Apple? So far the Motorola droid is the closest thing to it though it just lost by a hair in the CNET Prize Fight series with Brian Tong.

One thing seems sure, that Googles over all market penetration will exceed that iPhone because of Androids open platform. Android is not tied to a device or carrier and is much more open then Apple. Google recently released its secret phones for use by some employees that lead to some leaks videos and unofficial reviews online. Now with its release we will soon see the results of there efforts

Here is a link to the CNET Coverage
http://news.cnet.com/8301-30684_3-10424433-265.html?tag=smallCarouselArea.0

(Credit: Google)

2009 Was full of great mac apps and these are my Top 5.

Record:
For the recording industry, nothing changed the game quite like Propellerheads Record. Reason has been dominating professional music production for years now, but has missed one major component, Direct to Disk Audio. Record has not only solved this issue, it has also innovated on the idea, using a real world methodology towards audio. This application tops the list as a game changer in music recording, as a sequencer, recording, mixing, and mastering suite.

Daylite:
2009 was about getting organized and no one did that better then Market Circles Daylite. With its objective-oriented approach to projects, opportunities, and contacts, MCD makes it easy to integrate this program into what ever workflow you have. This program’s defaults also point you in the right direction when it comes to getting organized with its project workflows. One of MCD’s best features was its integration with the address book and calendar, simplifying the use of this application with other apps that utilize the same services. This program won many design awards in 2009, including the Apple Design Award. Market Circle also released an iphone application and server that brought this forward-thinking app even further into the future.

Billings:
Billings is another efficient Market Circle app, used exclusively for time-based billing and invoicing. Billings features a powerful design engine to create stunning looking invoices, and enables users to merge data in an elegant way. The application is a standalone product, and works well with the Daylite project management application. Billings also has nice integration features that work well with the address book and that give Daylite a more robust way of handling billing tasks. 
        

Mac Journal:
Packed with organizing features, Mac Journal is no mere word processor. It is also an excellent way to keep your thoughts and journal entries organized. The program for the most part is pretty straight forward with great drag and drop functionality of photos, movies, and sounds. Users can add html to their entries and post the data to multiple blogs. This program is an indispensable part of any bloggers arsenal that uses WordPress, Blogger, Joomla and or Drupal as a blogging platform. Offline journal-writing is available and safe, as you can encrypt and password protect your data.

Snow Leopard:
Speed, ease of use, and more disc space all-around, Snow Leopard packs a punch as an upgrade to Apples line of Operating Systems. I have seen as much as 20 gigabytes of space return to users who have install this purchased update to Leopard. One of the biggest features of Snow Leopard were the Microsoft Exchange support in Apples Mail, Address Book, and Calendar apps. This feature alone was worth the upgrade to mac users in PC environments. The improvements to the Dock, finder and Quicktime are some of the more noticeable changes.

For all of you software-philes out there another software bundle has been released. www.mupromo.com

Great New Apps for Only $49.

Path Finder: Hands down the best of the bunch!
Socialite: This was formerly called Eventbox which I got in the last macheist but this has more features like multiple accounts so I can manage all my online lives
Yep: Not Yet Opened
Radio Gaga: I have no use for this and I don’t like the name
GarageSale: Not yet Opened but I will do a VS on this verses iSale
DragThing: This is cool but I would rather use Path Finder
Speed Download: Love this
HealthNut: Good Little Tracking app gave as a gift to a Health Nut
PCalc: This app is Solid and way over my head
Machinarium: The Best Puzzle Game I have played since Abes Odyssey
iRip: Have not Opened but I will do a VS on this verses Phone View

Testing out the new Canon 7D and its 60p mode made me want to doing something I was never comfortable with in 24 or 30p and that is, shooting in slow motion! Unfortunately, if you use Apples Final Cut Pro and you slow even 60p past 50% the results become choppy. These results, made me began to question how this could be done and with a little research and  recommendations I found Twixtor from Revision Effects with a pretty hefty price tag weighing in at $329.99- $595.00. The results with Twixtor, were stunning,though the pluggin was difficult to figure out. There is something mesmerizing about the output even with some of the artifacts created when the footage is interpolated. After digging around a bit deeper, I found out that After Effects had a pluggin called Time-warp that achieves the same effect new to CS3.

Here is some test footage I posted

If you are looking for some fun free mac software check out voice candy on the Mac Heist website. In order to get the free version you must have a twitter account and tweet about Voice candy. Mac Heist will walk you through the easy steps to downloading your new wares. Voice Candy is a program that can change your voice to a Robot, Darth Vador, or even a Chipmunk. There is glorious amounts of time wasting to be done with this application. Normally Voice Candy cost around $12 so get it while it is free. Enjoy!

Here are some examples I created from Voice Candy:

Chipmunk:

Vador:

Robot:

This is not a warning these are actual shots being fired and hitting the iPhone!

The release of the Droid phone has this seasoned and loyal apple user in question if the iphone will continue to hold space in his pocket. I think Apple has gotten to comfortable in its smug little position. Who cares that you reinvented the smart phone if you let your core customers down. I feel I am pretty hard to displease but if you cross me to many times I will never indorse you again so tread lightly apple. Until now no one has come close to touching this phone because to the sheer number of apps, utility and sexiness. But as an iPhone 3G user I have slowly escalated to disdain its short comings. I actually find the phone to be dangerous while driving with its lack of voice dialing and real GPS and thought there may be an app for that it won’t run in the background for me to use at will. Some will argue the 3GS has voice dialing, but why do I have to buy a new phone when this is a software issue. Apple is notorious for putting our crippled hardware features when you know they know how to do it (“The infamous right click button comes to mind”). So I am going to list some features needed soon with no new purchase of hardware if Apple wants to keep my business.

1. Drop AT&T or add more networks like Verizon
2. Voice Dialing on all your phones
3. Bluetooth wireless sync
4. Internet Tethering
5. Real GPS and is integrated with the Address Book
6. MovieSupport on all your phones(I know you can do this because of the jail break apps)
7. Add Flash for crying out loud, No excuses

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Closing Thoughts:

The big google advantage is the Android operating system that more phones will have in the future. This and this alone posses the biggest treat to the iPhone dominance. This means there will be more and more developers clamoring to get over to Android based phones because there app will be more accessible and who knows maybe even easier to develop for. Look out Apple!