Music networking startup MusicianLink has introduced the jamLink – an Internet audio interface enabling musicians to play in sync from multiple locations across town or hundreds of miles apart.

The jamLink delivers CD-quality audio and works with guitars, bass, keyboards, drums and vocals – basically any instrument or mic that has a 1/4” instrument output.

Here’s how it works:

The jamLink requires a high-speed Internet connection, a web browser and headphones. There is no software to install; It was designed with plug and play ease in mind.

The jamLink is equipped with an Ethernet port that connects it to your network and is controlled by software hosted by your computer’s web browser. Once users log into MusicianLink.com, they can manage and initiate the jamLink sessions as easily as starting a chat session.

MusicianLink.com is a social network for jamLink users. Like other social networks, you can find and make friends, and connect with other musicians of similar talent and interests. Each jamLink user creates a profile and is able to search for compatible partners based on music style, instrument and ability. MusicianLink.com friends can share MP3 files, chat, and post messages.

The jamLink is now available directly from MusicianLink.com for $244 (introductory pricing) or save up to 25% when you purchase three or more.

If you’ve used jamLink, leave a comment below about your experiences with it!

More details and a demo below.

“After doing a lot of research and development, I realized that the only way to jam over the Internet was to build a dedicated piece of hardware that consistently provides the lowest latency and highest-quality audio. Audio cards, software, internal busses and operating systems each introduce too much latency,” said David Willyard, CEO of MusicianLink. “What is unique about the jamLink is that you get this “in-the-room” feeling, because you are playing in sync with someone who could be hundreds of miles away.”

Bandwidth Requirements

The jamLink requires a high-speed Internet connection. The recommended minimum bandwidths are 1,000 kbps upstream and 2,000 kbps downstream. The jamLink works with Windows, Mac or Linux operating systems and uses a standard web browser for operation.

OT: Some days, you get Dave Smith Instruments’ Prophet ‘08.

Some days, you get Ableton Live 8.

And some days, you get Two You Tube Videos And A Motherfucking Crossfader, a site that turns your web browser and your favorite YouTube dance tracks a rudimentary DJ setup.

Use the twin search fields to help cue up your next tracks, press play and then start crossfading.

via PranksterDice

According to Mosher, in the last year “the blog experienced non-linear growth in page views and subscribers.”

Non-linear growth is good. And, while I’d like to think the growth is because of “the Synthtopia effect” (server-killing waves of traffic triggered by Synthtopia posts*), it’s really because Mosher has been publishing a lot of interesting stuff.

Check out Mosher’s recent tutorial on step sequence editing in Ableton Live 8:

Click here to view the embedded video.

This is great information, professionally presented. The kind of stuff you’d have to buy a tutorial DVD to get, if it weren’t for people like Mosher.

So, if you haven’t yet, check out out Modulate This! and help Mosher make this the site’s biggest year yet.

* Note: The “server-killing waves of traffic triggered by Synthtopia posts” only actually exist in my  imagination.

Create Your own “Synthetic Symphony”, with Nick’s Online Synthesizer.

via richarddevine

We’ve criticized a couple of misguided web site redesigns recently, but Peter Kirn at Create Digital Music beat us to the punch on the strangely familiar new Behringer site:

Look out: Behringer, already a notorious rip-off artist, is taking the “first step in [the] company’s reinvention of online presence.” I shudder to think what the coming steps will look like. But yes, the new site looks a wee bit familiar. It actually gets worse as you dig into the layout.

In fairness, for over a decade now, Apple’s site has perhaps the most ripped-off Website design on the Internet. But then, Behringer is special.

I don’t know about you….but I’ve got a strange feeling of déjà vu…..

It’s worth checking out, but you may find the new site frustrating, because of some bad Web design decisions.

Like the way they present their new lineup:

This is new gear, right?

So, how is someone supposed to know what the heck a BA-330 or a FRV-1 or a VE-20 or a GW-8 Version 2 is?

Are we supposed to just click around and look for something we might like?

The Web site is supposed to sell music gear, not be a game of stump the customer!

If you’re interested in one of Roland’s new products, take a look at the new site. There’s a lot of good info there and multimedia demos, too.

But, please – Roland, Native Instruments and anybody else spending good money on a new website – make your Web designers deliver a site that’s not just sexy, but seductive.

via AccessMusic:

The Access Music website has been reloaded … www.virus.info

Very Apple!

No sign of an RSS feed, though. If you find it, leave a comment!

Roland has launched a teaser site for its new fall products, called Roland Connect:

On September 1, 2009, Roland will launch a new and innovative lineup of musical products via a unique web exhibition called Roland CONNECT. This virtual event will reveal Roland’s exciting new Fall lineup of products, covering a wide range of musical genres and product categories. Join the countdown now!

Not exactly viral – but we’ll be watching to see what they come up with.

If you’ve got any secret scoopage on this, leave a comment below!

SeeYouInSleep is a blog created by Brian William Green – a sound artist, visual artist and writer. The site captures a wide variety of Green’s experiments in sound, ranging from circuit bent instruments to found sound to generative music.

According to Green:

Seeyouinsleep, among many things, is a feeling and a vision. However, I would like for it to be understood as a portfolio and a folder of sorts rather than thinking of it as a name.

SeeYouInSleep is full of interesting audio experiments, and is updated daily with something new.

Here are a few examples from the site:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Vase + stereo mics + generative processing is “Just a little experiment using a vase, i really enjoy the sounds i was getting out of that thing im thinking of buying a few at different sizes to mess with.”

Click here to view the embedded video.

Haze is a track made using LSDJ for the Gameboy and a generative processing setup in Ableton Live.

Just click the Listen To Music link at the top of the page:

This should open up a new music player window that looks something like this:

Here’s some of the things you can do with the player:

• Click the play button if you just want to listen to the latest tracks.
• Select any track from the list and play it.
• Jump to any point in a track by clicking on the sound wave.
• Get info on the track
• Download over 100 free tracks! If the artist has enabled the free music downloads option, the player will show the Download options.
• Share the track to social networks like Facebook & Twitter, get an embed code or email it.

If you want to add your own electronic music tracks to the mix, check out this post: sharing music with Synthtopia readers.

Let me know how the new feature works for you and if you have any feedback on it!

Growing up, synthesizer advertisments were the only way for me to find out about new synths. Gear advertised in magazines such as Keyboard Magazine and Electronic Musician.

Its not that my local music shop didn’t have knowledgable staff, I was just scared of them until I was in my late teens.

Please join me in my infatuation with vintage synthesizers, drum machines and sampler advertising.

Seeing these ads, it’s not so difficult to understand why so many synth companies met early demises.

via MatrixSynth

Here’s a list of some of the top DJs on Twitter, via genxglow:

• Axwell
• Armin Van Buuren
  
• Ferry Corsten
• John Digweed
• Sander Van Doorn
• Paul Van Dyk
• David Guetta
• Eddie Halliwell
• Richie Hawtin
• Andy Moor
• Paul Oakenfold
• Markus Schulz
• Tiesto
• James Zabiela

This is a good start, but if you’re a DJ and you’re using Twitter, or if there are DJs that you follow, leave a Twitter page link or @ name below.

And if you’re not subscribed yet, follow me on Twitter for updates and twisted detritus from around the web: podcasting_news

Are you all ready for this?

Indaba has introduced a new JavaFX-powered digital audio workstation, Music Console, that’s like GarageBand for the Web.

Music Console lets you record and mix high-quality uncompressed audio directly with your browser and work both on and offline. The console features advanced web-based mixing and editing tools, real-time effects, and loops.

Features include:

• Recording: High-quality audio recording directly to Indaba
• Clips Library: Choose from hundreds of Creative Commons-licensed loops
• Real-Time Effects: Chorus, reverb, EQ, flanger, and more!
• Online/Offline Use: Use the console anytime, anywhere!

This is brand-spanking new, and Indaba is pushing the envelope of what you can do via the Web. So, they’re asking people to give the new Music Console a try and to give them feedback.

The site and service is free, with two paid versions available also: Pro ($5/month), and Platinum ($25/month).

If you give Music Console a try, leave a comment with your thoughts!

Berlin, July 7th, 2009 – Native Instruments today announced that it will no longer maintain a booth presence at industry tradeshows like the NAMM Show, Musikmesse or AES in the future. The company has decided to instead prioritize online communication channels to engage with customers directly even stronger, and to allocate budgets accordingly.

This shift in priorities is exemplified by the new sophisticated rich-media website that Native Instruments launched recently, and will be continued through the establishment of further innovative online channels and other means of direct communication in the future.

“Times are changing and we have seen tradeshows become increasingly less relevant for our industry,” says Pablo La Rosa, International Marketing Director at Native Instruments. “By focusing our efforts in online communication and direct-to-customer events, we reach out to today’s musicians and producers in a way that we believe is more efficient for us and more engaging for them.”

This is bad news for music trade shows, because if Native pulls out, others are likely to follow. This may make sense for individual companies, but may be a loss for the music industry as a whole.

The announcement is a sign of the decline of the music trade show as an event to get excited about. It’s always been fun to see the smorgasbord of announcements that come out of an event like NAMM, and also to get the perspective of seeing and hearing a huge variety of gear in one location. It remains to be seen whether something new will emerge that can match the excitement of huge trade events.

It’s puzzling, though, that Native Instruments cites its new website as one of the reasons for the move.

Native calls Native-Instruments.com a “new sophisticated rich-media website”.  Synthtopia readers, though, call the new site “rubbish” and “a post-apocalyptic view of Flash hell”.

Native Instruments new site seems amateurish, as if the company paid no attention to usability, accessibility or findability in creating it. They’ll need to fix the site quickly if they expect it to be able to take the place of their presence at trade shows.

What do you think about the announcement? Are music trade shows dead? Or do you think this is just a cost-cutting measure for Native Instruments?

Leave a comment with your thoughts!

This video gives an overview of the new Native Instruments website, which was due for an overhaul.

Jean Michel Jarre introduces his new website, JeanMichelJarre.com.

The site features sections for news, Jean Michel Jarre’s blog, tour information, multimedia, a Jean Michel Jarre discograhy and a forum.

We’ve published multiple posts highlighting the music of Synthtopia readers in the past – but now SoundCloud has added a new “Group” feature that should make this even easier.

We’ve created a SoundCloud group for Synthtopia that lets anyone add tracks to share and lets anyone download them. Here are the most recently added tracks:

Synthtopia

Thanks to everybody that’s added a track so far!

Got tracks to share? Here’s a music dropbox link so that you can add your tracks to the Synthtopia group list:

Send us your track

Give this a try and let us know what you think. If you and other readers like this approach, we’ll find a permanent place for this on Synthtopia.

And let us know if you’ve got other suggestions on how we can help electronic music fans connect with electronic music artists!

DJ Dog image: jmatthew3

Music sharing site SoundCloud reports that Richie Hawtin is now using a SoundCloud DropBox to receive DJ promos for himself and artist demos for his label Minus.

“If you’re a DJ, label or journalist, make things easy for yourself and the people sending you tracks… start using your DropBox today,” adds SoundCloud’s David Trattnig.

Are you using SoundCloud or another music sharing site?

Image: Caesar Sebastian

5 Experience Pulse is a browser-based synthesizer. You can get a free iPhone synth version of this, too!

via Adrian Ragucos

Brian Green is creating generative music in Ableton Live using sounds shared on Twitter as source material, and is looking for other musical techies to connect with on Twitter:

What i did in the video is i took the amazing software by soundplusdesign and i made a sound, i then went to the soundplusdesign twitter and another person i follow Ojects and i used a sound from each of them, i then used my generative set up with ableton and put each of the three sounds into a chain and started to mix them up together.

I have to be honest i was recently thinking of deleting my twitter i realized how its really not that usefull to me but i thought before i get rid of it lets try this tweet a sound thing out and im glad i have it now.

THE PLAN: so this is what i want to do im going to keep making videos of this little project, but what i want you all to do even if you don’t make electronic music, even if you dont make any kind of music download this program and mess around with it post some tweets of what you make.

Basically i want to follow a bunch of people who do use this and keep messing around with sounds we all create and make little videos and tracks such as the one below. Follow me and post a link to your twitter in the comments section of this page if you are doing this i will also post a little list of people who are tweeting sound as well as i come across them.

Details on Tweet A Sound here.