Archive for the 'Music' Category

Amarok 2 - Coming Soon to Windows

Published
by
John Griffin
on May 9, 2007
in Music and Tech
. 2 Comments

Amarok

This one slipped under the radar. Recently the Amarok team had success at porting their awesome KDE based media player over to Windows. It’s far from stable yet but this is a very promising first step that will give many current iTunes users something to look forward to rather than sparsely released, poorly written updates.

Guitar Hero 2 Download Tracks Are Too Expensive

Published
by
John Griffin
on April 11, 2007
in Gaming, Music and Tech
. 3 Comments

Major Nelson just announced the downloadable tracks for Guitar Hero 2 on Xbox 360. Lets break down the cost.

500 points for 3 tracks. Thats £1.42 per song. They are re-releases of Guitar Hero 1 tracks which featured 47 playable songs. So they value the song library alone of the original Guitar Hero at £66.58!! I paid £50 for Guitar Hero on PS2 with a guitar and the rest of the game. Bullshit! No deal Activision.

Things I Have Been Doing this Weekend

Published
by
John Griffin
on February 10, 2007
in Gaming, Life, Movies, Music, TV and Tech
. 6 Comments

  • Fixing python RSS scripts to work with the ‘new and improved’ F4WOnline.com. No Bryan I don’t like the new design.
  • Going back to XNA but now in Vista (thanks Dave). Here is a screen shot of a space ship in space in 3D. Yes.
  • Playing the latest episode of Sam and Max
  • Watching Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe. Great great great TV show about TV. Mondays 10pm BBC 4, you will love it.
  • Remembering the music from Charlie Brooker’s Screenwipe is also in the movie 28 Days Later which I have just realised has an amazing soundtrack in addition to being an awesome movie. I need this in HD.
  • Cackling manically as my dual core CPU bails under the strain of the Supreme Commander demo. This one is a beast folks and the first barrage of many that will force us all to upgrade our PCs in 2007. Even those of us who did so less than a year ago. Damn.
  • Wondering why the hell I pay for PC Gamer if all the articles are just going to wind up online from now on.

Windows Vista iTunes + 2G iPod Nano Hack

Published
by
John Griffin
on January 22, 2007
in Music, Podcasting and Tech
. 1 Comment

The only way I have been able to get some usefulness out of my second gen iPod Nano in Vista was like this:

  1. Hook it up to a Windows XP PC with the latest iTunes.
  2. Restore the iPod to factory settings and do a clean format.
  3. Once complete don’t sync anything, just check the manually manage iPod box.
  4. Plug into Vista PC with clean iTunes installation.
  5. Try and sync podcasts. This works but attempting to do so with any music playlists doesn’t. You can however drag over the playlists you need manually.

This should tide us over till Apple release an update.

The Inevitable iPhone Post

Published
by
John Griffin
on January 10, 2007
in Music, Podcasting and Tech
. 0 Comments

People have been asking so here it is.

Watched the keynote last night. Love the iPhone and I definitely want one. It’s far and away the best UI I have seen on a phone and it must terrify their new rivals. I could go on and on about how good it is but instead here are a few of my initial concerns:

  • UK pricing. If I sign up to a 12 month contract I am used to getting discounted phones. Can’t see that happening.
  • Storage. This is the widescreen, touch screen iPod we have been waiting for but there will not be enough space for all our music and a collection of movies.
  • Openness. Can I install my own software? It doesn’t look that way, strange really - if Apple threw us some APIs for that touch screen we’d have a DS rival on our hands in no time.
  • Scratchability (look it up kids). Big screen = big scratches. I smell third party love.
  • Wireless sync. It’s got WiFi. The Apple TV can sync via WiFi so why can’t this?

So there you have it. It would be nice to see these issues addressed soon but we are a long way from launch and as we get closer I’m sure we shall hear more.

The Nex Album is Here

Published
by
John Griffin
on November 24, 2006
in Life and Music
. 1 Comment

nexCongratulations are due to Nex on getting their debut album out the door. I’ve known Ed for a long time (birth) and he and the rest of the band have worked extremely hard and sacrificed a lot to achieve this. As I’m sure those who have listened to the album will agree it’s really paying off. It’s a strong mixture of metal and punk stylings with catchy riffs and a raging pace. Particular highlights for me include text speak sung in chorus (yes, it’s true) and Ed laying down the best ROARS I’ve heard in ages.

Nice one guys, See you on the tour!

nexmusic.com or myspace.com/nexmusic

Songbird Swoops In

Published
by
John Griffin
on February 8, 2006
in Music, Podcasting and Tech
. 0 Comments

Songbird has finally hit the net in very early version 0.1 form. It’s looking very promising from my use of it today and certainly handles web based audio excellently. As for the library and jukebox functionality I have had a number of stability issues which should probablly be expected considering the size of the library and the early version of the software. It can get about half way through my music folder then it falls over but I am not supprised really.

Once the niggles are sorted out this player will be well on it’s way to being the iTunes rival it sorely deserves to be. I am just glad the team got this release out there so we can see what they are up to and how we can help. Roll on summer for a full release candidate!

BTW if you having trouble getting hold of it Xeni has posted some mirrors up on BoingBoing.

Songbird - Firefox for iTunes

Published
by
John Griffin
on December 28, 2005
in Music, Podcasting and Tech
. 1 Comment

Although still in an early stage of development the Songbird project looks like it has a load of potential. It’s essentially an open source alternative to iTunes built on the same platform as Mozilla Firefox. I am one of the biggest critics of iTunes but also one of it’s biggest users so the idea of this really appeals to me. If they can nail streaming, podcasting and stability (something iTunes sorely lacks) then we could be in for a winner.

Of course being open source and extension friendly means the sooner they get this app out into the world the sooner we can all start tweaking and making it better. Even if podcast support isn’t there initially it can be bolted on with minimal effort for the average Mozilla developer. This bird might just fly.

Hamachi Update

Published
by
John Griffin
on December 24, 2005
in Music and Tech
. 5 Comments

As I have said before Hamachi is awesome and its uses are pleantiful. When I woke up this morning it occured to me I didn’t have my music collection with me at home, then a thought crossed my mind. I have iTunes here, I have iTunes at the flat so if I enable sharing…. nah it couldn’t be that easy.

Well it works like a dream without lag or delay making full use of the fat upload pipe at the flat.

Oh and now I remember as I am rocking out to it get the new Alkaline Trio album. Best. Stuff. Yet.

Audioslave - Out Of Exile

Published
by
John Griffin
on May 18, 2005
in Music
. 1 Comment

B0009GIAQQ.02.LZZZZZZZ.jpg

  1. Your Time Has Come - Couldn’t get my speakers any louder for this one. The riff master is back!
  2. Out Of Exile - Seriously funky and an awesome solo.
  3. Be Youself - Heard before and can already play it, great tune. Got to love the whammy.
  4. Doesn’t Remind Me - Starts slow but not long till they get to a drool inducing solo.
  5. Drown Me Slowly - Faster pacing and more screachy than normal (good thing), awesome bass at the two minute mark.
  6. Heavens Dead - Very melodic but still a nice crunchy guitar.
  7. The Worm - Very Zeppelin esque verses.
  8. Man Or Animal - Great drum rolls, scratch tastic and a crazy ass solo.
  9. Yesterday to Tomorrow - Good
  10. Dandelion - Slower song with great bridge
  11. Number 1 Zero - Slowing it down even more building up to some cool metal.
  12. The Curse - Soundgarden-ish chords. Good lyrically.

This is an improvement on the last album for one clear reason. Last time it sounded like Morrello was a bit restricted compared to his Rage days but this time arround he goes off into crazy solos with pleanty of whammy and there are some dead funky riffs in there. This also has the trademark Audioslave slower songs still in the right ammount - as much as some of us would like they are not trying to be Rage. Overall it starts off hard and funky slows down towards the end, I’m buying this one.