The Roland JUNO-G has attracted some interest from CDM readers since I mentioned Roland’s YouTube contest and talked a bit about the JUNO line’s history. (See previous story.)

One of you by the name of “made” even asked comments addressed “Dear Roland.” I had to admit I was curious about those answers, so Roland responded.

The JUNO-G feature a lot of readers wondered about was the onboard sampling functionality. That feature was beefed up in the OS 2.0. Personally, I’m still looking to keep my samples on the software side, but I can see this having some appeal for live performance. With 2.0, you can sample onboard, which could make the JUNO-G an interesting “live-PA”-style synth, a hardware unit with some sample savvy, and/or a way to supplement your laptop in gigs.

New 2.0 features as described by Roland:

• Sample audio from external sources or import audio phrases from the removable flash memory.
• Samples can be assigned to trigger from the JUNO-G’s function buttons or the JUNO-G’s keyboard.
• Velocity and note number can be assigned individually for each sample.
• Adjust Start, End and Loop points using the JUNO-G’s front panel control knobs.
• Advanced sampling editing such as Truncate, Normalize, Emphases, Sample Chop and Combine are included.
• Samples can automatically match BPM in real-time to changes made to the tempo of your song.

To download JUNO-G Version 2.0 software upgrade, please visit:
http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.aspx?dsection=d_downloads&ObjectId=756

Now, onto the tips, which come from Roland’s Eric Klein.

Thanksgiving is an American holiday on this international site, but the basic ideal for which the day has come to stand – giving thanks – is a noble one. So we want to do three things here for CDM:

1. Ask you what for you’re thankful, musically speaking. It might be a synth, or a collaborator, or an album, or a song, or the metronome you’ve used since you started playing, or having more discipline practicing. It could be tech (you know the slant of this site), or not. I’ll be putting together the answers in a big, warm heap for us to share, like virtual pumpkin pie.

2. Meet CDM Notes. Like you need another mailing list, I know. This one will be different – it won’t just be an automated dump of headlines; it’ll actually be an email from me with personal notes on the week’s events in music and motion, and some exclusive tidbits not elsewhere. You don’t have to sign up for the mailing list, but this is a chance to do it if you like. And it’ll include some things to be thankful for.

3. You could win a copy of T-RackS 3 Deluxe. Whether you opt for the mailing list or not, you’ll be entered to win a copy of IK Multimedia’s latest release of their mixing and mastering suite. (I’m playing with it now; watch for a review soon.)

Enter now: http://cdm.thanksgiving.sgizmo.com/

The wonderful wire to the ear beats me to raising the question of which online music sharing service should rule them all, Bandcamp or the just-public SoundCloud.

I’ll be taking both for a test drive, but as I’m looking at them, any other services we should be considering for a prize fight? Any first impressions on which you like best?

Be sure to vote in wire to the ear’s poll, too; we’ll be watching.

Bandcamp Screencast from Ethan Diamond on Vimeo.

Okay, readers around the world. There’s a convergence of electronic musicians and visualists here in NYC at Minitek this weekend. Here are your choices:

Music lineup
Innovation Day Artists
Visualists for the Innovation Night Lineup

I’ve got myself. I’ve got a video crew. You’ve got, I think, pretty wildly divergent tastes — and many of you aren’t electronic musicians. But I’m curious, which interviews would you most want to read / watch? (I promise we’ll ask probing questions, and we’re not just limited by celebrity, either.)

I’ve never put this out to readers before, but then CDM’s ability to cover events and artists is finally starting to expand to what I’d like. (Not that I ever get tired of talking tech, but I think it’s nice to cover, you know, music, too!) So I’m curious not just what I think but, given your combined experience and taste, what you think. Let us know.

Related: Teaser: Minitek in NYC Draws Huge Lineup, a New Tangible Music Interface

Today’s reflections on the importance of album art:

1. Album art can be beautiful, whatever the recording medium. It can reflect great design, and extend the expression of the album itself (well, and it helps if the album is great). Justin and Colin have created the site Hardformat to celebrate design on everything from tapes and records to new releases. They have a gorgeous gallery of stuff, pictured above. I like what they have to say on their about page:

It seems like everybody’s talking about the end of physical music media. Who knows whether they’re right or not, but Hard Format is a little place we’ve set up to celebrate our love of brilliant music-related design. That means we’re going to focus on records, CDs, cassettes and their like. However, Hard Format isn’t intended to become a dusty museum devoted exclusively to past glories, though there’ll certainly be some of that, we also want to highlight the brilliant new design work being produced right now.

2. Physical objects could be a powerful force in the digital age. Digital downloads are wonderful. But there’s a coming renaissance in physical objects, premium album releases, and oddities. I’ve been talking with people about crazy ideas like DIY Blu-Ray discs or building custom MP3 player kits loaded with music. In the throw-away age of culture, it’s a chance to care about what an object is, who made it, how it got to you, and what it means in your life. And it’s a chance not just to bring back the goodness of the LP’s cover as artistic canvas, but to go beyond that to new expressive forms. Nostalgia is fine; making new things is better. Make the change you want to see. (Apologies to Ghandi.)

3. I really wish the album art on my digital downloads weren’t so $#(*& screwed up. I rip music from CDs, I download through promotions, I use eMusic, I buy from medium to obscure digital stores and digital labels and direct from the artist, and yes, very, very rarely from iTunes. Somehow, about half wind up without embedded album covers, and my iPod touch insists on syncing with iTunes. Has anyone found a good workflow for properly cleaning up your album tags, filling in the missing covers successfully, and syncing it to devices?

Comments welcome on my syncing woes. (Yes, even Winamp and Media Monkey aren’t able to clean it all up, though I do use the latter for clean-up.)

But in the meantime:

Hard Format: Reaching for the Sublime in Music Design

And for more album art collections, see their inspiration page

Or from vintage CDM and the opposite end of the spectrum, Terrible Album Covers, Fugly Bands