I’ve started to go through my archives and upload music I created over 10 years ago, I have a few things to go up but here is the first. Please subscribe and help support the channel.
Tag: music
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I’m trying to get back into guitar and I’m pretty pleased I can record straight into my iPad mini.
I’m using GarageBand on the iPad as my recording app. I’m not 100% happy with it just yet because it’s onboarding amp models I can’t get rid of. I use a Line 6 POD GO with a load of effects and amp modelling built in. When it’s used with GarageBand it sounds kind of over processed.
Anyone got any ideas?
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Since taking a good look at my budget over the last year and really thinking about the money that goes into services it got me thinking a lot about music streaming. I went from Apple to Amazon and back to Apple via free trials etc but now I have been left without a trial and the prospect of £9.99 a month I sat back and thought about how I actually use a music streaming service.
What I found is that I listen to pretty much the same music on a daily basis. I do dip into recommended playlists every now and again but 80% of my listening is something I either already owned via iTunes or an album that I just listened to daily.
At over £100 a year I stopped and started to listen to just the music I purchased and haven’t really missed access to a streaming service. What I’m going to do is stick with this way of listening (I’m rediscovering loads of old music I used to listen to) and when I come up against something I really want to listen to I’ll just buy it outright. Even at £5-£9 an album I think I’ll half my costs going forward.
This is definitely a question worth asking yourself, do you listen to a lot of music or stick to the same stuff? If it’s the second one you may want to reconsider your subscription and pick up the music individually.
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I’ve been testing different music app subscriptions for the last 6 months going between the main three.
- Apple Music
- Spotify
- Amazon Music Unlimited
What I’ve found is that there’s one difference with Spotify that makes the difference for me – playlist curation.
The available library and costs are pretty much on par between them all but only Spotify has me discovering more new music to listen to. I really like their curated playlists and whilst Apple are doing something similar they seem a bit more random and don’t the songs don’t always match the playlist theme.
After using them all now I feel that Spotify offers the best discovery of them all.
If you just listen to the same library over and over then you can go with whichever app you like the most but if you’re into discovering new music then Spotify is the way to go.
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So, I’ve finished my three months with Amazon Music Unlimited and generally I liked it but there were a few things that annoyed me
- Being marketed podcasts on almost every screen (I don’t want podcasts in my music player)
- Getting to recently added isn’t easy and recently played only shows tracks, not albums
- The performance of the music player and service in a browser on the whole has been poor on my MacBook but even on the 5k iMac I run into issues when moving through my artist view (it wan’t to show bubbles with artist images rather than a text list)
I went ahead and cancelled my subscription and started to use the music app (macOS and iOS) to listen to music I had already bought in the past. On firing up the app on my iPhone, Apple sent me a message asking me if I’d like to sign up again and get 3 months for the price of 1. I enjoy music and the Music app so I thought it sounded like a good deal and signed up again, that means that I’ve had 7 months of music for less than £11 – I’m pleased with that and shows you can get things cheaper if you willing to move around a little.
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I’ve recently switched over to the Amazon Music and finding to be a good cheaper alternative to Apple Music. The iOS app is straightforward and intuitive, the selection is just as good and downloads seem faster to me.
Check it out here (you will be supporting the site with this link)
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Ludovico Einaudi is one of my favourite artists of all time and I recently discovered that he has recorded an album at his home with an iPhone whilst in lockdown.
Check it out on Apple Music here.
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I’ve enjoyed The Witcher Netflix series and today the soundtrack got added to Apple Music. Here’s the link.
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Along with one of my favourite documentaries I’ve seen in a while the soundtrack is great, especially to work to.
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Today’s the day, the new Tool album releases on Apple Music. Looking forward to listening to this one.
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After having a good few days now to play with the Bose NC 700’s I’ve reached a point where I’m weighing up the inconveniences of a larger over the ear headphone compared to something like AirPods. I’ve come to the conclusion that a pair of noise cancelling headphones are only really needed for those of us that commute very frequently. I’m home based but do travel for work and in those times it would be good but I’ve found that I’m not using them daily now the initial enthusiasm for noise cancelling has worn off. Can I justify keeping a pair of £350 headphones for something I’m going to use maybe a couple of times a month. At home I work on my own so for the majority of the time I use what I have that sounds the best, that’s the HomePod.
For the other times I’m using my AirPods as I can lie more comfortably with them in my ears than a pair of over the ear headphones.
If you’re after a pair of noise cancelling headphones then I still think the Bose NC 700 are the best I tried in my testing but if you only travel a few times a month either don’t get a pair or get a pair of Bose QC35 or Sony and save yourself (depending on sales) around £100.
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Tool are in my top 5 bands of all time and on viewing them in Apple Music you can now their upcoming album to your library.
You can listen to the first track off the album and wow it’s Tool at their best.
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Arrived today and not had much of a play but thought I’d post some images of it out of the box.
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I came across Teenage Engineering via the Playdate and love their design so when I saw their Pocket Operator series I thought I’d give one a go. I wanted something small I could fiddle with and act as a change to using an iOS device. I was also after a new creative outlet so having a tiny music device I could pocket, have on my desk or take with me sounded perfect.
I’ve only just ordered so I’ll post up some unboxing and review stuff once I’ve had a play.
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I picked up a Yamaha THR5 as a desktop amp that I could also use to record with. I’ve recorded on both an iPad and Mac in the past so wanted it to work on either of these. The bad news for my iPad is that it doesn’t recognise the signal coming into it.
I tried USB from the amp into the camera connection kit then into the iPad. GarageBand and Bias don’t show a signal at all. Yamaha could patch this one but not sure what the demand is. I can’t try usb-c as I have an older 10.5 with a lightning connector.
So I can record with my MacBook so not the end of the world as I’m quite used to Logic Pro, which is a superior app to GarageBand anyways.
Only option for getting an iPad input is to use the headphone out or a microphone plugged into the iPad.