The Best Guitars and Basses Under $500 (GBG Part II)

As promised, here is a list of reviews of different instruments for different styles and tastes. These instruments are what we consider to be today’s best options for inexpensive, quality guitars and basses.

Either you’re buying your first or 50th guitar, be sure to check out the options on this list - some are amazing out of the box, and some can be turned into real professional gear after something as simple as a pickup replacement. More…

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Rage Against The Machine Took The Power Back

Rage Against The Machine were denied access to the stage at the Ripple Effect festival, a day-long event held at the MN State Capitol’s Upper Mall, to promote non-partisan progressive politics in the shadow of the Republican convention.

So the band used a megaphone to speak to the crowd, performing Bulls on Parade and Killing in the Name… a capella. More…

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MOTU Digital Performer 6 Now Available

Our beloved DP is now in version 6, with several interface enhancements and new operation features. Film composers should be kept busy with the new scoring features, like new supported project frame rates and visual cues directly through DV output. Integration with Final Cut Pro is now a reality - and the interface seems to be brighter, using a whiter gray and colorful waveforms (Pro Tools-like), maybe to accommodate the enhanced Pro Tools HD hardware support. More…

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The Voice Died September 1st

Don LaFontaine, also known as “The Voice”, died Monday at age 68. The man who narrated more than 5000 movie trailers became an indisputable legend in the world of voice overs.

LaFontaine died at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles of complications from a collapsed lung. He had been taken to the hospital on August 22 with a blood clot in the lung.  [Video after the jump] More…

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Universal Audio Unveils UAD-2 (PCIe)

Universal Audio today announced the UAD-2 Powered Plug-Ins & PCIe DSP Accelerator Card for DAWs. The UAD-2 is the successor to the revolutionary, award-winning UAD-1 Powered Plug-Ins & DSP Card Platform. UAD-2 offers scalable DSP power via 3 different types of cards (Solo, Duo or Quad) which can be mixed or matched in any combination up to 4 cards. Each UAD-2 is powered by the same Analog Devices® 21369 SHARC® floating-point DSP in single and multi-chip configurations. UAD-2 offers 2.5X (Solo), 5x (Duo) and 10X (Quad) the power of UAD-1. More…

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Top 10 Most Inspiring Movie Soundtracks of Recent Times

I have met some composers who were not completely up-to-date in their blockbuster movie knowledge and enjoyment…
And there are some flicks from the past twenty years that you definitely need to watch if you’re a composer. Considering that most of them work for film, it’s important to know the good music that is being created for movies. Just like the way alternative or hip hop producers and engineers should know the work of Andy Wallace - even if they don’t like the music he is mixing. Because some productions are just meant to raise the bar and become a reference. More…

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Guitar Buyer’s Guide (GBG Part I)

Buying the perfect guitar without killing your bank account has been increasingly easier, and I guess we all owe that to a lot of market competition. But that also means people need to be a lot more careful when picking their axe: I still see a lot of folks spending their whole savings on something that is worst built and worst sounding than competing models that would have cost less than 1/3 (one third) of the price! This personally makes me really sad, because everyone deserves a great guitar or bass, whether they’re learning to play or been doing it professionally for decades.
The market may be cruel and misleading, but if you know how to look, you can find something good. Being a guitar player for 12 years, I learned it the hard way. More…

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New AC/DC Album Coming Soon

Great news for the huge crowd of AC/DC fans - after 8 years of absence, the legendary Australian rockers’ new single “Rock’n'Roll Train” will hit the radio August 28. This will prepare the market for their new album, to be released in October 18 exclusively at Walmart stores, entitled Black Ice.

The band finished the record with respected rock producer Brendan O’Brien in Vancouver in just eight weeks and recently filmed a video for Rock’n'Roll Train, which will premiere next month. Black Ice will feature 15 tracks including She Likes Rock’n'Roll and War Machine.

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Sonicloud Mastering

Coming soon

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Definitive Guide to Windows XP Tweaking for Audio

Microsoft Windows XP is still the number one choice of operating system for DAWs on PC. Yes, it’s worse than Linux (if only we had Pro Tools for Linux), but better than Vista in the part of not being a total memory and CPU hog (you know, kinda like OS X Leopard is now). But unlike Mac OS X, Windows is not about having big Fisher-Price icons and the hopes that things will “just work”, or not work at all.
Windows XP is less black & white, and needs work before audio projects can call it a home. But here are some performance tips for all the Windows XP DAW users. Use this article as a reference. More…

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