iTunes Match is a service from Apple that allows you to put all your non-iTunes purchased music into the cloud for sharing across your Apple devices. This is a great option for people with lots of music that they’ve ripped from CD and put into iTunes, for example.
The following video shows how to purchase iTunes Match and start setting it up, as well as how to see what’s happening with your music as the service attempts to match songs that are available in the iTunes store, or upload copies of your songs that are not in the store.
V-Moda Remix Remote Earphones and Arctic E461-BM Earphones
Companies: V-Moda & Arctic
Websites: V-Moda & Arctic
Price: V-Moda Remix Remote: $79.00 USD / Arctic E461-BM: $31.36 USD
One of the greatest assets to any iOS device is the ability to listen to your favorite music, audiobooks, or your favorite apps. There is nothing more annoying than trying to do so with earphones that simply ruin the experience with their shoddy qualities. Most of us aren’t in the market for expensive earphones that can cost over $200, so what’s out there for those of us who want to find a balance between sound quality and cost? V-Moda and Arctic each have earphones in their lineups that try to reach such a balance. How do they compare?
Sibelius 7
Avid (North American distributors)
Price: $599 ($149 upgrade)
Review by Mark Sealey dedicated to the memory of Steve Jobs, 1955-2011
When Sibelius 7 was released recently, its appearance was sufficiently different from that of Sibelius 6 to have thrown some (long-time) users. Avid was criticized on those listservs and forums which do such a sterling job of supporting Sibelius owners and prospective owners. Since so many creative professionals and enthusiasts have so much invested in a piece of software which they use for extended periods each day and to the ways of which their muscle memories had become fully used, change seemed particularly hard.
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VSL's Solo Strings
Vienna Symphonic Library Solo Strings Bundle
North American distributors:
ILIOPrice: $660
Virtual Instruments (VIs) allow you to work with lifelike sounds in sequencers and Digital Audio Workstations (DAWs) like Apple’s Logic and notation packages like Avid’s Sibelius. (Avid has just announced Sibelius 7: watch for a review here shortly.)
VIs are collections of acoustic/sampled and/or electronically synthesized sounds with varying degrees of realism and flexibility of use. Formerly hardware-based, VIs are now available almost entirely as software. They range from the cheap, barely tolerable and tinny to… well, to those produced and sold by Vienna Instruments.
Transcribe! 8.1.0
Price: $50 for single users;
contact Seventh String for pro-rated discounts
Transcribe! claims to be the “world’s leading” tool to help musicians extract music from recordings. It can also be used to transcribe speech and even allow musicians to play along. Does British firm, Seventh String, get credit for trying what’s difficult to do well but really end up as little more than an “also ran”? Or do they have a winner that works in almost every way?
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2011-06-16
Mark Sealey
Groove 3
Price: $49.99 for single users; contact Groove 3 for groups specials and (educational) discounts
MIDI Orchestration Explained, using strings
Although an older technology and simple in conception, MIDI (Musical Instrument Digital Interface) can be complicated to implement and make the most of; and particularly challenging to use in effective music making. But the clear explanations and expert perception of Eli Krantzberg and the Groove 3 team are well up to the task of making MIDI orchestration both plainer and pleasurable for users.
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Xsample Chamber Ensemble
Winkler und Stahl GbR
Xsample
Amselweg 6
32756 Detmold
Germany
BestService
Sound on Sound
Price: $738.33
Groove 3
http://www.groove3.com
Price: $39.99 for single users. Contact Groove 3 for groups, specials and (educational) discounts
Although Logic began as music notation software, its Score Editor has recently been overshadowed – outpaced even – by its other features; and outshone by the richer feature set of the dedicated music notation software, Sibelius. We’ve looked previously at Johannes Prischl’s excellent book covering the Score Editor. Now Groove 3 has released an equally useful, well-structured and expertly-written and presented set of nearly 60 video tutorials on the subject.
Resources for Avid's Sibelius 6
Sibelius 6 is far and away best-of-breed as the gold standard of music notation software. The main review examines this latest version, its strengths and what makes it so successful. But the resources to which most users will want to turn have musch to recommend them as well.
Sibelius 6
Company: Avid
Price: $599 (Sibelius 6 Educational: $295; upgrade: $169)
Sibelius 6 from Avid
There are standards, industry standards – and gold standards. Sibelius 6 is all three. It’s certainly the most comprehensive, robust, easy to use, well-designed, flexible, and satisfying score-writing/notation package available for the Mac (or indeed any platform) currently available. Sibelius 6 has several major enhancements: it’s hard to believe it’s even better. But it is.
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The Logic Notation Guide
By Johannes Prischl
Price: available directly from the publisher
See the pricing page on Johannes Prischl’s site for price structure; usually approximately $50
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Apple’s advanced Digital Audio Workstation, Logic, actually began life as software written by C-Lab, Emagic’s forerunner, to enable musicians to use the computer for conventional music notation. Indeed, it was originally called ‘Creator‘, then ‘Notator Logic‘ and now, of course, ‘Logic‘. Along with Logic‘s ‘Environment’ (an immensely powerful way to have elements in the music-making process link together), Logic‘s Score Editor is perhaps the least understood and generally most underused component of the software.
Abaltat Muse 2.0
Company: Tunepresto
Free 7 Day Trial Version Available for Download
$99 USD, 80 € EUR
One of the most difficult decisions in producing a video or slideshow presentation is the choice of music. If you want to use a copyrighted song or soundtrack then you have the option of requesting permission for use, paying a royalty, or purchasing a copyright-free library. Music is essential for a slideshow or film production as it may evoke emotion, excitement, or drama for the viewer. Creating a soundtrack has never been easier with Tunepresto’s Abaltat Muse 2.0. This is a sophisticated application that allows the user to create an infinite amount of royalty-free soundtracks with professional results. I was a bit apprehensive to use Abaltat Muse 2.0 as I am not a musician but this is an intuitive and well-designed composition software.
Apple’s flagship Digital Audio Workstation (DAW), Logic 9 (in ‘Pro/Studio’ and ‘Express’ versions), comes with a comprehensive manual. It’s well indexed; it’s available to read, consult and work from electronically— as a PDF. At almost 1,300 pages, it ought to be good. That it’s much more substantial than many Apple manuals is a blessing given the complexity of Logic 9, an Apple Pro Applications product which underwent three minor revisions this fall.
Nevertheless, resources to enhance, supplement, complement and extend the Logic 9 manual are beginning to appear. There are half a dozen websites with training videos, easily as many books, and now DVDs. These were all evaluated for this survey, which presents a review of the best.
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Orb has three products:
Orb Live: $9.99
Orb Music Player: $69.00
Orb TV: $99.00
http://www.orb.com
Orb Video On Many Devices
Orb has three different products which are quite similar in operation, and work together to offer up your content where you want it and when you want it. Orb’s first product, Orb Live, is an app for iPhone or Android that includes a second piece of software (Orb Caster) that runs on your Mac or PC. Together, these two pieces of software let you “take” the music, videos and photos that live on your computer with you as you travel, without having to move anything to your mobile device, and regardless of their file format or size. You can also watch live TV on your mobile device if your computer has a TV Tuner (like a USB tuner) as well as view any web cameras attached to your computer. Orb Caster transcodes
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iPhone data recovery service
DriveSavers
http://www.drivesavers.com
800-440-1904
DriveSavers is possibly the best-known name in the personal computer data recovery business. The firm recently announced that it now provides data recovery for damaged Apple iPhones.
Being both a happy iPhone owner, and a curious Mymac.com reviewer, I wanted to learn more. Why would anyone need data recovery, when the iPhone syncs each time you dock it with your Mac?
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Music is something shared by friends.
In your lonely room you listen to your tunes. Certain songs strike a chord somewhere inside you.
You share these songs with your friends. You play them when you get together. You tell them of your newfound gem. You look up a band’s website together and see what else they’ve done. This is a social interaction . . . an age-old bonding ritual. Mom did it with CDs. Her mother did it with Cassettes. Her mother did it with 45s. Her mother did it with 78s. Her mother did it with sheet music and a piano.
This is how music GETS to be popular. This is the mechanism by which music is found by an individual and subsequently purchased.
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By BoycottBuyMusic.com’s Jesse Perry
(Publishers Note: A few weeks ago as I write this, I received an email in regards to a recent article I wrote about BuyMusic.com. The email pointed out a few good references, one of which was BoycottBuyMusic.com. I found some of the content there very eye opening, and contacted them with the notion of perhaps writing some of their findings as an article for posting here at MyMac.com. Jesse Perry graciously agreed.)
It’s amazing. It really is, how one man can create such uproar among Mac and PC users. It’s been over a month and already 3 websites, countless blog entries, and forum posts have popped up in protest against something so amazingly stupid. It’s not even that Scott Blum (the founder of Buy.com and now BuyMusic.com) really did much to get all this started. He didn’t need to, everything his new company was going to be, was already started. It can be debated, yes, but I don’t think there are many people that can say with a straight face that BuyMusic’s ideas were original. I help run a website and here we’re going to look at what we’ve found so wrong with BuyMusic.
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