Posts Tagged ‘entertainment’
iRig VocaLive Coming to Mac App Store
Continuing on in my love of all things iPhone, iPad, and performance art technology, Starr Ackerman of IK Multimedia passed this information to me about the new iRig Mic with VocaLive, an app designed for mobile recording and processing with the vocalist and speaker in mind.
iRig Mic from IK Multimedia
The iRig allows you to plug in a guitar or a mic into Amplitube 2 (for iPhone4 and iPad), allowing you to access effects processors similar to your mixer and stomp pedal effects board, only now you can do the same for your voice with minimal set up and minimum cost. You just download the app, plug in the iRig and iRig Mic, and dial up what features you want off the touchscreen. If you already have an iPhone or iPad, adding on these features in the IK Multimedia family will cost under $200 total. That’s an inexpensive mobile sound system! #WANT!
For a look at what iRig VocaLive can do, watch this Youtube video:
The iRig can be ordered for $39.99, and the iRig VocaLIve can be pre-ordered for $59.99 on the IK Multimedia website. My review of the iRig and Amplitube 2 will be coming shortly, so I’ll let you know when and where you can view it.
Of course, the iRig mic and VocaLive app will be mine. It has always been my prediction that a good hunk of the best of new applications for the Mac App Store would turn up in music and entertainment, and CES 2011 has been pretty good proof of that. People need to get past the idea that all apps worth anything are going to be sold for 99 cents or free. These are applications that are going to give back to you as an artist, and as time goes on, they will have additional features that will only make mobile performance, practice, and processing nearly identical and easy to use as expensive sound processing set ups, only much more fun, portable, and downright sexy.
BTW, the hardware holding up the iPad in the video is called the iKlip, at a price point of $39.99. The iKlip would be handy for reading lyrics, music, and set lists in live performance. No more set lists taped to the floor to read with bad lighting.
This is creativity without limits. Are you ready?
Kid’s App Mixamajig Mixes Fun With Creativity
Things are about to get kooky around here. This application review is about Mixamajig, an application in the Apple iTunes Store inspired by children and made for children, mixing fun with creativity.
Some of you have already seen the Kooks from the new iPhone4 app Mixamajig HD by Lucky Radish. Now approved for iPad, this kid-friendly application lets kids and adults create funny creatures by swapping out heads, torsos, and legs from a beginning set. Players receive more Kooks when they share their creations on Twitter and Facebook, including Kooks inspired by kid-friendly movies and books.
Every Kook creation can be saved and shared with others. Far away relatives don’t need to wait for your child’s refrigerator art. Instead, you can zip off a copy of your child’s handiwork to their email or Facebook page.
Players can swap the backgrounds with pictures from their computer, and they can also insert their own faces into a preset hole in the Kook’s face. For iPad, I found it very easy to manipulate a picture of myself and my cat Charles-Monet (as seen in the video review). Since I love thrusting human qualities on my cat, Mixamajig does this well. As you can see from the demonstration, my cat’s paw was enough to select other Kook parts on the iPad screen; a very young child could manipulate the screen with little assistance. However, when mixing the pieces by shaking the device, it’s sound judgment to let an older child or adult shake that $500+ piece of equipment.
While both the iPhone4 version and the iPad version are the same, I personally enjoyed using the iPad version for the size and the ease of manipulating the screen when inserting and resizing photos.
What else can you imagine doing with Mixamajig? What if we could mix up body parts of various real people’s pictures? What if we could turn this into short animated films in which your kids and pets can feature themselves?
iPod Touch Video
On October 2, 2010, Bill Wolford won the HipsForHire.com 8GB iPod Touch give away to a qualified NW artist in celebration of the first year of the project. 
I asked Bill to create a video highlighting an idea from any recent work he’d done within fourteen days of winning the iPod Touch.
Here is Bill’s video:
For you budding artists out there, notice the visual clarity you get from a tool that isn’t all that complicated to use, nor expensive. [Note: Bill did not use the iPod Touch mic. He has his own sound equipment.] If you are in need of investing in a quality recording device with a camera without investing in the monthly fees associated with the iPhone, the iPod Touch wins my vote. I hope it wins yours too.
My Favorite Feed Of The Moment:; LIFEHACKER
- Use Dropbox to Find the IP Address of Your Remote Computers [Networking]
- Be Lifehacker's Los Angeles Intern [Announcements]
- Remains of the Day: Will Docs Be Google's Cloud-Based Music Player? [Video]
- Microsoft OneNote Comes to the iPhone [Downloads]
- How to Keep Your Ex from Popping Up All Over Facebook [Downloads]
- Best iOS Newsreader: Reeder [Hive Five Followup]
- Your Employer Can Read Your Work Emails, Even to Your Lawyer [Privacy]
- Send to Kindle Pushes Web Articles from Chrome to Your Kindle [Downloads]
- The Voice Over Office [Featured Workspace]
- AirView Streams Media from One iOS Device to Another via AirPlay [Video]
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