Julio d’Escriván :: Music

Wired Music

• Review: Science Trips Out on Music in 'The Heart Is a Drum Machine' March 9, 2010
  Through interviews with a brainy crop of musicians and scientists, a new documentary probes the connection between body, mind and music.
• Pink Floyd, EMI Brawl Over iTunes Royalties March 9, 2010
  Pink Floyd and EMI are locked in a royalty battle -- yet another example of an emerging dispute between rights holders and publishers over payment for intellectual property born before the explosion of online digital sales.
• Get Jazzed for Monster Miles Davis Giveaway March 8, 2010
  Tell us why the trumpet player and bandleader was one of music's most innovative forces, and you'll be entered to win a copy of the 70-CD box set Miles Davis: The Complete Columbia Album Collection, a Miles-branded iPod and Monster Miles Davis Tribute high-performance headphones.

Create Digital Music

• This Week at the Game Developer Conference, San Francisco, Push the Button March 10, 2010
  What can you do with this? Game designers and artists find out this week at GDC. (Pictured: my own submission, up close.) Why should Create Digital Music and Create Digital Motion (and, well, their editor) go to a game conference? This year, in particular, the annual gathering of game developers in San Francisco means a real [...]
• OSC, Kyma, iPad, and Beyond: Your Networked Musical Future March 8, 2010
  Connecting stuff is one of the things musicians naturally do with gear. So, there’s really no reason that musical gear shouldn’t network as easily as Web servers. And yet a basic protocol, built largely on existing standards, meets with responses like this: “We’ll support OSC when there’s hardware out there.” “Name o […]
• Mu, Lemur + Ableton Live Integration, Revealed – and Other Lemur Sequencers March 5, 2010
  We already knew that one Next Big Thing for the Lemur – the specialized multimedia multi-touch controller – would be Ableton Live integration. Having teased that coming functionality, JazzMutant has now revealed the name (“Mu”), as well as a video showing what the features look like. What’s funny to me is that the result is [... […]

Wired: Gaming

• Valve Brings Hit Games, Steam Service to Mac March 8, 2010
  The successful digital-distribution service will bring titles like Left 4 Dead and the upcoming Portal 2 to Apple's computers for the first time.
• Review: Beautiful, Boring 'Final Fantasy XIII' Loses RPG Magic March 5, 2010
  Stripped-down gameplay built around a unique battle system can't save this monotonous, linear affair. In the end, striking visuals and an excellent score aren't enough to paper over the game's gutted role-playing frame.

Wired Listening Post

• Eliot Van Buskirk's Listening Post: Put Your Money Where Your Indie Rock Is March 2, 2008
  With CD sales declining and labels whining, it might seem crazy to view recorded music as fertile ground for investment. But for thousands of fans-turned-music-investors on SellaBand and Slicethepie, it makes perfect sense to gamble on a favorite band's future. "I don't see anything wrong with the music industry in terms of artists being d […]
• Eliot Van Buskirk's Listening Post: Major Label Fights Google-ization of Music With SeeqPod Lawsuit February 17, 2008
  In the world of online music, you're nobody until somebody sues you. Like so many music startups before it, the innovative MP3 search site SeeqPod finds itself staring down the wrong end of a major-label lawsuit from Warner Music. Even though it's just one company, the stakes are high. The future of search itself could be in jeopardy, becaus […]
• Listening Post: Want Better Music? Don't Stiff the Songwriters February 3, 2008
  As Hollywood writers strike for a piece of digital profits, a similar battle is brewing over royalties paid to songwriters and music publishers. The Copyright Royalty Board began hearings last Monday to determine publishing royalties for CDs, downloads and -- for the first time -- subscription music services, ringtones and interactive webcasts. The heari […]
• Listening Post: 'U2 3D' Brings Hyperreal Arena Rock to the Multiplex January 20, 2008
  As I left the Imax theater after seeing U2 3D, a man asked me, "So, what did you think?" Using my best Larry David impression, I responded, "Pretty good. Pretty... pretty good." I was lying. The film I had just seen -- the world's first three-dimensional live-action concert film -- was astounding. I just didn't want to tel […]
• Live Music Webcasting Starts Making Sense in 2008 December 23, 2007
  With ticket receipts soaring and online music more popular than ever, why is live concert webcasting -- which sits squarely at the intersection of these trends -- still lagging? After showing early promise at the turn of the millennium, webcasters' path to success was slowed by three major roadblocks having to do with technology, audience and record […]
• Listening Post: Radiohead Makes Business Plans the New Punk Rock December 11, 2007
  Radiohead's "pick your own price" release of In Rainbows might have seemed like a one-size-fits-all template for the struggling music biz, but the band's management never harbored such illusions. Bryce Edge, a manager for the band since 1991, called the experiment, which ended Monday, "a solution for Radiohead, not for the indust […]
• MC Hammer Hops Onto Dance Craze With DanceJam November 11, 2007
  In case you hadn't noticed, dance is hot and getting hotter. MC Hammer did notice, and the rap/dance superstar wants a piece of the online action. To that end, Hammer teamed up with Geoffrey Arone, co-founder of alternative web browser maker Flock, to create a new website called DanceJam that will offer slow-motion tutorials and other dance-oriented […]
• Vinyl May Be Final Nail in CD's Coffin October 28, 2007
  As counterintuitive as it may seem in this age of iPods and digital downloads, vinyl -- the favorite physical format of indie music collectors and audiophiles -- is poised to re-enter the mainstream, or at least become a major tributary. Talk to almost anyone in the music business' vital indie and DJ scenes and you'll encounter a uniformly optimi […]
• Dying DRM Means More Freedom for Music Fans October 14, 2007
  Tech pundits and music columnists have predicted for years that digital rights management would die, record labels would crumble and artists would sell music directly to fans. Now those predictions are beginning to come true -- witness Radiohead's revolutionary album launch last week -- and music fans should rejoice at the unlimited options the future […]
• Herbie Hancock Talks Math, Music and Mastering the Tech Toolbox October 1, 2007
  Musician and composer Herbie Hancock's career has careened from straight jazz to experimental electronic music over the decades, with his surprise 1983 break-dancing hit, "Rockit," helping set the stage for hip-hop. And while Hancock's embrace of the experimental put him at the forefront of the digital music revolution -- "I'm […]

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