Given a choice between boring and crazy, I always choose crazy. After all, craziness is part of the artistic persona. So bring it on.

It’s been a while since we had a celebrity saying things that didn’t really make sense. It’d be unfair to ask Ricardo Villalobos live up to some of the titans – Bob Dylan saying CDs have “no stature” and “have sound all over them,” and Elton’ John’s classic call to “tear down the Internet.” (Not to mention, in the end I think we wound up agreeing with them and turned Elton’s quote into a brand-new verb.) As with Elton John and Bob Dylan, I love and respect Villalobos’ work, no less so as he says things with which I disagree. But Ricardo Villalobos does get special credit for claiming in a recent Resident Advisor interview, among other things, that what has really hurt sound quality today is the lack of cheap drum machines from the 80s, because they were analog. Or they weren’t, but it was as if they were. Or something. (If you think this might earn some ire from Ableton loyalists, you’re right.)

No. I think the development is going in the opposite direction because everyone is making tracks in programs like Ableton, which has an OK sound engine. When I started making music 20 years ago, you had to at least buy a mixer, then some synthesizers, a drum machine—which is the best quality possible of a sampled drum. There was a pureness of the source of the music. It was analog, direct.

Ah, yes, the good old days. Back in the day, digital samples of acoustic instruments played through digital-to-analog-converters were real digital samples of acoustic instruments played through digital -to-analog-converters. It was analog, direct – well, aside from the fact that it was digital and not direct, but it was real … um … analog … digital. Pulse code modulation was real, pure pulse code modulation, not like the pulse code modulation you kids have today. Not like now, when people don’t … own… mixers. It’s not like you kids today, you people who use Ableton, people like… Ricardo Villalobos. (Villalobos is, in fact, a notable Live user.)

I mean, at least it’s a novel argument. Usually, you get the “mixing in the box is bad” and “computers aren’t real” argument from crusty audio engineers with massive outboard analog mixing boards, not electronic musicians. Recently, many experienced engineers I’ve talked to have come to the side of accepting that “in-the-box” recordings in software can be just as good as their analog counterparts. So, we may have reached a real landmark, a world in which electronic musicians claim digital’s no good and turntables are the only way to listen, while engineers experienced with analog claim just the opposite.

Let’s go back in time. For the record, twenty years ago by my calculations would be 1989.

The drum machine you might have bought then could be the Alesis HR-16, or perhaps a Roland TR-707. They’re fantastic, unique-sounding instruments. But “the best quality possible” is not generally a phrase associated with instruments of this era. We love them because they aren’t 192kHz, 64-bit multisamples recorded from 30 microphones and shipped on a 100 GB hard drive, because “quality” isn’t actually everything. And if you bought a new mixer in 1989, I assume you picked up something like Mackie’s just-released LM-1602, rather than an SSL. Of course, you really could go do that now. In fact, Ableton Live recently added 64-bit processing in the signal chain; the software that does more aliasing to account for lower bitrates is actually Pro Tools.

He goes on:

The thing is, you have the limitation of the program, the limitation of the digital mixing which is happening inside the computer, you have the limitation of the sound sources of the synthesizers—the virtual synthesizers. Even the sound engine is playing a very big role in the whole sound of the product. If you have a good turntable and good speakers, you can hear it is made in Ableton. Logic, for example, is very neutral in sound but Ableton…you can hear it in two seconds.

It’s hard to know where to begin. Live does have an overused sound – but that comes from people using effects presets as-is, people not knowing how to mix, people time stretching and warping without adjusting settings or taking care to think about the impact on its sound.

The idea that you have to use a turntable to hear these things, or generally to hear quality issues in a track produced entirely digitally is… well, an interesting theory. (It’d be like testing the fidelity of your inkjet printer by first taking a Polaroid of the output.)

They have all of these virtual instruments that are calculated by a computer, and you have a certain space where you have to put everything. And when you want to leave this space, you have to live with compromises, the compromises of digital mixes and recordings.

Now, perhaps I’m wrong, but I thought that if for some reason you thought you needed to mix on an analog board and record to, say, analog reel-to-reel, you were no less able to do that with the analog outs of your MacBook Pro than with your 606.

And what exactly was in those vintage drum machines, if not a computer making  calculations? Eleven secret herbs and spices? Elves with slide rules?

But this is the beauty of interviews – you can say whatever you want. And it definitely beats boring.

There is also one statement with which I wholeheartedly agree:

People are finding it easy to publish something without any controls. And this is the problem with the internet in general. There is so much information, and no one knows if it’s true or not. It’s just there. It’s an information monster.

It’s almost as though the Internet is a place in which people can make any wild claim they wish, without anyone questioning its basis in reality or fact.

http://www.residentadvisor.net/feature.aspx?1128

My own President Obama is this week off making his pitch for why Chicago should host the Olympic Games. Correction. Oops. I need to read the news. Chicago was eliminated first. But look out – our friends at Antipop (slogan: “antipop music for a pop music”) are using a different tool in their arsenal: music.

Watch the video for some fun gear spotting, plus one vintage arcade cabinet. I could point out stuff I see, but that’d spoil the fun. Shout out in comments.

There’s definitely a commercial gloss on this, but it’s nicely executed, and felt so absurdly Olympic to me that I actually couldn’t help but smile listening. (In fairness, either Chicago or Madrid ought to be able to do better than New York did with 2012; I recall dignitaries in traffic while rowers paced the polluter waters of Flushing Meadows. Yipes.)

Here you go, probably the most commercial music we’ll ever run on CDM:

Makes me want to, like, train or something.

Updated: From comments, I like these alternative suggestions by safd in place of “anti” pop:

superpop, poppypop, hippop, popcore, purelypop, universapop

Popcore is something I need to work on. It was worth posting this for that word alone.

Background: “Antipop is the Antonio Escobar music production personal studio, one of the most awarded Spanish producer and composer.” [sic]

Update: Superpop or antipop, the song alone couldn’t melt the hearts of the Olympic Committee. Congrats to – Rio!

Marrying open source and commercial development, or trying to bridge analog consoles and computers – either task on its own might seem improbable. But yesterday, a newly-announced tool promised to bring together all those dimensions.

Ardour is the free and open source Digital Audio Workstation software for Linux and Mac. It’s widely underrated and has some terrific architecture underneath, with tools that are maturing at a healthy pace. Harrison is not an open-source developer – they’re a commercial manufacturer of analog and digital consoles and do proprietary DSP development. Conventional wisdom says the two shouldn’t be able to work together, but they did. The result is something called Mixbus. It’s got Harrison’s technology for mixing, atop Ardour (on Mac OS X, for now) for recording, editing, and arranging.

The Harrison half of the solution uses Harrison’s own DSP algorithms for sound, which they claim match the EQ, filtering, compression, tape saturation, and summing on their large-format mixers. But aside from sound, this is also about design: the layout only ever has one knob per function and metering is done in a conventional way. The result is not just a set of plug-ins, but a real virtual console inside your Mac. Interestingly, too, while you can use your Mac Audio Unit plug-ins with the solution, Harrison chose the open LADSPA format to implement their channel strip.

I imagined that the pricing would be something like a thousand dollars, given the pro target market, but the whole thing costs just US$79.99 as its introductory price. If it sounds anywhere near as good as the makers promise, it’s probably the best deal in mixing and channel processing anywhere. Here’s the product page:

Mixbus [Harrison Consoles]

Of course, the advantages of free software are more than price; it’s the ability to keep the source available, to be able to customize it, and to be able to run it on a variety of hardware and software platforms. So how does free software coexist here, with Ardour under a GPL license? Creator Paul Davis says that the free code for Ardour remains available in Ardour’s Subversion repository; only the Mixbus components remain closed. As for Linux support and not just Mac OS, which would in turn support more hardware, Paul says they’re looking into the feasibility of binary Linux distributions of Ardour and Mixbus.

For any commercial developers who think that you can’t work with open source projects – or, for that matter, if anyone thinks open source projects can’t benefit from collaboration with commercial developers – I think you’re wrong. And licenses aside, this looks like a nice solution for music making.

Record is now shipping, and the beta closed – and now is a perfect time to talk about learning.

Okay, let me explain something. Propellerhead doesn’t want Record to be called a “DAW,” for Digital Audio Workstation. I personally overcame my own distaste for the strange acronym today because, well, there’s not another good name for a related set of tools.

But I do think Record is different. Workstations are usually defined by being all-in-one environments, for hosting other third-party instruments and effects, and adding in additional features like notation and video scoring. Record is none of those things. You can even treat it like a virtual mixer or rack of processing tools and load it into your existing “DAW” of choice, or take something like Ableton Live and load it into Record for mastering.

But then, Record is the exception that proves the rule, isn’t it? Aggressively geared to be the anti-DAW, to avoid trying to be all things to all people, Record illustrates the variety of ways you can get your music making done.

We’ve had a good, healthy debate on this topic, so no reason to resurrect that. Instead, I have two pieces of news: one, Record is now actually shipping. Two, if you’re interested to learn how to use it, or just to see what they’ve done, the Props have assembled a terrific set of learning resources. For beginners, “Record U” promises to cover the basics of recording tasks as well as the software. (So far, the first episode, “Recording Guitar,” is available.) You can add that to lovely ReWire tutorials from the folks who developed the technology, and mini-tips on how to use the tools. Whatever you think of the software, it’s an exemplary learning site, just the kind of thing you’d hope developers would do.

Basics video
Record U
Tutorials Page
Micro Tutorials and iTunes podcast link

I’ve chosen my favorite so far. Love it or hate it, I think this illustrates some of the vision of Record. It makes moving tracks and devices as easy as racking up instruments and effects in Reason, and makes mixing and matching audio uncommonly easy. That could make Record a nice tool to have around for trying to take your pile of recordings and productions and turn them into finished tracks and albums. (A lot of this “love it or hate it” phenomenon seems to depend on your feelings about Reason, so Reason fans will also want to take a look at the Reason – Record integration video.)

For people looking to get into music recording and production on a computer, for the first time, there’s a bundle that says “Pro Tools” on the box that costs correction: as little as just $99. It really is Pro Tools software; it’s certainly streamlined (some basic track limits, no multitrack recording), but still with a serious complement of recording, mixing, and effects, and even some nice virtual instruments. Beyond that, your choice is which hardware you’d like in your “value meal”:

For vocalists: The Vocal Studio has a cardoid condenser mic – that’s a USB mic you can connect directly – plus a stand and a case.

For “recording:” The Recording Studio gives you a simple 2-in/2-out audio interface so you can connect your own mic/line/instrument input.

For keyboardists: The KeyStudio is a 49-key synth-action keyboard with mod and pitch bend, plus and an audio interface (the 1-in, 1-out M-Audio USB Micro).

Correction: $99 is the price for the keyboard and vocal bundles, $129 for the recording bundle with Fast Track. (I had an early press release that said pricing was $129 for all three.)

The target readership for CDM may not be in the market for this bundle — though it is a ridiculously cheap way to add Pro Tools compatibility to your rig, if you just need to trade session files. But I know we also have a lot of readers who offer expertise to other folks. Do let us know what they think – if they’re turned on, or turned off.

See additional analysis on what the larger implications of Avid’s strategic shift may be.

If you’re a beginning user, I don’t doubt that this software will get you started. You get over 5 GB of instruments and loops, 60 virtual instrument sounds, reverb / chorus / delay / flanger / phaser / compression / EQ effects, reasonable track counts (16 audio, 8 instrument, 8 MIDI), 3 insert slots per track for “up to 3 simultaneous effects,” buses and send/return routing, and 2 simultaneous audio inputs and outputs. So you can’t do simultaneous multitrack input or surround hardware, but you’d need a different audio interface for that, anyway.

Actually, so that you can email this story to your nephew or niece who’s just starting out and considering options, let me translate to English:

This is a well-priced package that gives you the hardware and software you’d need to record podcasts, voice-over, and vocals for music (Vocal Studio), play some synths and instruments (KeyStudio), and input your guitar or instrument (Studio), and in each of them, record, edit, and produce musical arrangements. You get some virtual instruments to play with, some pre-stocked sounds, and all the editing and arrangement you’ll probably need.

It’ll run on Mac and Windows machines with modest specs (see the product page for the full details), though you will need these audio interfaces connected for the software to start. (You can’t simply use the headphone out jack on your MacBook or PC laptop, for instance, which is possible in some competitive software. The interface is effectively used as copy protection for the software.)

-Peter, speaking English

I believe that there are other ways to put together a good studio for this price, of course. There are some terrific “bargain-priced” music apps out there, actually more than I have time to use. It’s time to refresh CDM’s own budget recommendations for a variety of different kinds of users. But I actually think the presence of this option, with the “Pro Tools” name, could raise the visibility of the whole area. And since ultimately comfort with musical tools comes down to preference, the big question is whether a new user likes the Pro Tools interface and the package here.

More photos of the included gear below – nothing glamorous, but certainly not bad for the price, let alone with the software bundle.

Given the passion of the debate, it’s easy to forget that Propellerheads’ Record has been firing up discussion from many people who haven’t actually seen it. Record is to audio recording, mixing, and mastering what Reason is to synthesized sound, and for Reason lovers, it finally delivers that holy grail – multiple racks. Record is a bit like Reason Studio, taking those instruments and giving them a full production context.

Since its release, Propellerhead has amplified polarized opinions about this tool. It doesn’t support plug-ins (though you can use other ReWire clients), it doesn’t do things like film scoring, and thus its singular focus on recording means I think it’s fair for Propellerhead to say it’s not a DAW. Of course, going so far as tell blogs they can’t label it as such is going a bit far, and it only made some people protest more. And the focus on those features hasn’t pleased users who want everything and a kitchen sink on their feature list. Users were divided over the Ignition Key and online authorization scheme (see full explanation), of course.

But it is something about which everyone seems to have an opinion, and for that alone, I love it. That’d be a little more fair if you’ve actually gotten to use it, however. So, now’s your chance to try Record for yourself:

http://www.propellerheads.se/products/record/

The beta is a full-featured, open-and-save-capable version, through its expiration date on September 9.

If you’re impatient, we can get you the beta key right now. Just leave a comment, say something intelligent, say “+1 beta,” and be sure to leave your real email address. (Emails are not published on the site; I’ll just see them in my inbox.) If you’d like to be on the CDM Notes mailing list (no other marketing or spam), say “+1 email.”

All out! Thanks to everyone; hopefully we’ve gotten everyone a code who wanted one. Follow comments for some little glitches with their Website…

Once you’ve got a reply from me, download Record by entering your code at http://recordyou.com. You’ll also get two codes to pass along to friends.

Update on registration: I talked to Propellerhead’s web developer – when you get the confirmation email for recordyou.com, go ahead and log in! You’ll be confirmed automatically. Some people saw this login page following the confirmation email and thought something was wrong. Don’t worry, log in, and everything will be fine.

We’ll give out keys until we run out. Propellerhead shared some with us, but then composer Josh Mobley, whose work is featured in Record and has been an advocate of the software from the beginning, reached out. Josh gave us half his stash of keys to share with CDM readers, because he’s devoted to Propellerhead’s stuff. How devoted? He has a Reason tattoo. And it’s nice to hear that Record is pleasing a Reason fan, as that to me remains the big test. Josh has done some significant commercial work, ranging from NBC’s The Office to Ford Motors to the US Department of Defense, with scoring, music, sound design, remix, and environmental projects.

http://www.joshmobley.com/

And he’s a superfan in the best way. I asked him why Record matters in his work:

I love me some Reason. In fact, I love it so much, I got a tattoo on my wrist of the Reason logo. Most people thought I was out of my mind but I love it. Why? Things really didn’t start taking off for me until I started using Reason. I took one look at the program and thought, they made this for me. I started busting out tunes faster than I ever had before. And people were snatching them right up. It dawned on me right then and there that this self-contained environment had freed me up and allowed me to be creative without scrolling through a bunch of plug-ins and whatnot. The distractions of making music were gone. A limited tool set that can be routed and combined in an infinite number of ways. One needs only to look at the patches and music that [Reason user] peff is making to see that reason is the most powerful music instrument in the world.

And now, we have Record: Audio+Reason+SSL Mixer. Having used it since the early alphas, I can honestly say that Record is every bit as musical and easy to use as Reason. The time stretching is, frankly, jaw-dropping. The new mixer sounds like the SSL at my old studio. You can easily do a whole song in Record without any other software. However, Record+Reason is a lethal Combination.

I could go on and on, but at the end of the day, you really need to spend some time with this program and see what’s possible. I can almost certainly guarantee that you will be making music faster than you ever did.

Now, a superfan is not a fanboy. Fanboys, as we know, are the folks who get defensive even in the face of some obvious shortcoming, who spend lots of their time talking down other people’s choices. The superfans I’m guessing are generally too busy actually using their software – in this case, making music.

And if you do find software you love enough to tattoo on your wrist (see also our friend Jo with Reaktor), you don’t need any reviewer or forum commenter or expert or anyone else to tell you what to think. You’ll know.

Do tell us what you think of Record as you use it, and good luck snagging a code.

Previously:
Propellerhead Record In-Depth Preview: Recording, Reason-Style; Beta Test Now
Propellerhead Record: New Getting Started Video Tutorial, Blog
How Propellerhead’s New “Ignition Key” Authorization for Record Works

Apple has released Logic Studio 9 today. Banner features: “Flex Time” audio warping, new goodies for guitarists (plus integration with a new audio interface and pedalboard from Apogee), expanded support for working with video and outputting compression, and most interestingly, tools for making MainStage a feature you might actually take onstage.

I’m meeting with Apple next week, so if you think of any smart questions, do pass them along. I should receive my testing copy then, too, so expect more details. In the meantime, here’s how it looks “on paper,” in a nutshell.

Live Performance

This to me is the interesting one. I loved the idea of MainStage when it came out, but I had a number of complaints in regards to what musicians would actually want to do for live performance. Specifically:

• MainStage needs a way of playing backing tracks, particularly for bands and acoustic players and soloists.
• ReWire is a must, so people using tools like Ableton Live (or Reason, or the awesome tracker Renoise) can work with them in a MainStage rig.
• Better control mapping was needed for real performance – including grouping.
• Musicians need a way of recording their gigs.

Well, guess what? Apple says they’ve added all of that to MainStage 2. ReWire support should make this particularly interesting, as solutions like a Logic-Live rig now become practical. And this is the first DAW to really try to do backing tracks in a way bands can use, even including Ableton Live.

Grouped controls allow you to drag and drop layouts of controls as macros. It’s a nice implementation, and different from what’s currently out there.

There’s also a live loop recorder, tape style. My first impression of this is that this doesn’t appear to match things like the new looper in Ableton Live 8, which can set an entire project tempo – it’s more like a basic stompbox effect, as we’ve seen previously in Native Instruments’ Guitar Rig. Still, that matches the simplicity of some of the other tools here.

Augh… and yes, that is Apple’s now-ubiquitous album art view as the browser mechanism for templates, proving they really don’t know where to stop. At least it seems they haven’t used that for the entire UI.

Of course, performance is everything in these implementations, so it’ll be fun to torture test MainStage 2 and see how it stands up.

And for anyone who wanted Live clips and Sculpture in one session, this could be interesting.

Flex Time Audio Manipulation

The music software market is already crowded with tools that promise to let you manipulate audio independent of its original tempo – but this implementation is more interesting than you might first think. You actually drag the mouse on the waveform itself, turning the sound into a Silly Putty-like, warpable view. Very much like Ableton Live, Logic also adds modes based on material (rhythmic, polyphonic, slicing), and an audio quantize mode that applies the feel of one track to another.

There’s also a slightly gimmicky record start/stop effect, which I’m sure will be a boon to anyone doing editing for MTV.

But make no mistake about it: Flex Time could heat things up.

Side note: Does Sibelius – now owned by industry titan and major Apple rival Avid – really not care that Apple lifted the name of its “FlexTime” technology, which I thought was trademarked? Did Apple pay off Avid to grab that name? (Especially funny after MainStage had a similarity to Plasq’s OnStage from Rax, a virtually identical feature.)

For Guitarists

• A new pedalboard full of effects
• An “Amp Designer” for combining 25 amps, 25 speaker cabinets, and 3 mics, plus a library of new presets
• Integration with Apogee’s new GiO interface in both Logic and MainStage

Apple is obviously committed to providing a one box solution, so you never have to buy anything for music making that doesn’t have an Apple logo on it – something I’m sure doesn’t make Native Instruments, Waves, IK Multimedia, and other competitors exactly thrilled. Those solutions are already really good, but I have heard Apple’s implementation is quite nice, and I’ve heard it from people who are actual guitarists.

Notation Enhancements

Ornaments have been expanded with a broader notation library, and a set of some 4000 chord grids beef up tab capabilities for guitars.

I still think you’d be nuts to use Logic in place of something like Sibelius for major notation editing, just because I find the dedicated tool much quicker to use. On the other hand, Logic was born as “Notator,” so it has notation in its blood.

Other Improvements

• Turn tracks into sampler tracks (again, the first time I’ve seen a good implementation like this outside Ableton Live)
• Drum replacement
• Improved editing inside take folders – so you can adjust recordings while keeping your takes
• Better bouncing, track import
• More bizarre warp effects for Space Designer (okay, I have to admit, I’ve gotten addicted to using convolution reverbs for special effects, so curious what they put in there)
• A Vocal Jam Pack

There’s also a new browser for instruments, it appears, apparently to make this more accessible to new users. On the other hand, that’s a bit like holding a toddler’s hand before putting him in the seat of your Ferrari, when it comes to interfaces like Ultrabeat. (See what I mean on Apple’s site.) But I suppose it can’t hurt – and meanwhile, the market for educational products remains.

Soundtrack Pro 3

Soundtrack Pro is the oft-overlooked audio editor bundled with Logic. Part of the promise of Soundtrack is working well with Final Cut, so it’s nice to see some new features that help distinguish this tool. (I have to say, on the Mac I do prefer working in Soundtrack to working in Peak — call me crazy.)

• Vocal Level Match applies a vocal level from one clip to another clip – fantastic for podcasting and production for video, if it works as advertised
• Editing by frequency (’bout time — I’m hoping this means we can work directly in the frequency view, as you should be able to do)
• Advanced Time Stretch
• Compressor output workflows

Breakfast of Champions

Apple has also added greater emphasis to artists, mirroring what they’re doing with GarageBand — though any hopes for Pro Artist Lessons with Logic are sadly thwarted so far. What they are doing is “Pro Sessions,” in which you can download actual session files. (I’m guessing that doesn’t include some third-party plug-ins they used, and it’s no match for, say, remix stems, but…)

Logic Studio in Action

(Yep, people use Logic)

Artist Sessions (one nice gem in there — a Santigold remix… but was Santigold herself not a user of Logic?)

What’s Not in this Upgrade

As near as I can tell, Logic will not support 64-bit memory addressing or 64-bit mixing. The former is extremely unfortunate for users of big sample libraries, although third-party tools do fill some of that gap. (Even so, native 64-bit memory support would be welcome.) It’s possible we may see this in an update, however; if it’s “in the future,” we just won’t know because Apple makes a policy of commenting only once things are released.

Also, it appears that Logic’s increasingly long-in-the-tooth library of effects and synths — once part of the core appeal of the tool — are left as-is in this release, which would be unfortunate. On the other hand, with options like Native Instruments’ Komplete to fill that need, and a price of US$499, it’ll be hard to fault Apple on this.

Many folks expected some sort of iPhone / iPod touch app, given that third parties have built them for control and the like. They were wrong, but I’m not surprised — Apple likes to keep its consumer and pro features fairly separate.

Any other omissions you notice, or things you’d like me to ask about? Let me know.

At least I have a fairly decent working list for what I’m likely to be hard at work testing when this arrives in the mail.

And Logic has some intense competition, too, with even a new entry on the scene this year (Propellerhead’s Record).

Let the games begin…

Apple Logic Studio

All images Courtesy of Apple.

Snack-sized, solid state HD video is cheap and affordable these days. Sure, a handheld video recorder like the Flip HD or Kodak Zi6 may not rival your real camcorder, but they’re dirt cheap, fit in your pocket, and with good lighting can put out really nice footage. There’s just one problem – the sound is often utterly dreadful. (I picked up a Zi6 this week because its audio is pretty reasonable, but it’s not stereo and I wouldn’t use it in an audio-critical situation.)

Hmmm… if only your favorite HD video handheld and something like the awesome Zoom H4n could combine…

It seems Samson/Zoom heard your wish. The Q3 has the stereo mic from the H4n – a really great-sounding mic for field recording, one that almost magically seems to make things sound good in tough situations. But it adds to that native MPEG-4 video recording. Pop in a 32GB SDHC card and the device promises up to 16 hours. (Or bring a few cards – they’re removable.) And you get high-quality stereo audio, something that even fairly pricey camcorders almost always lack. (Heck, even the supposed prosumer or even “pro” models are often downright awful in the sound department.)

Another unique feature: while most camcorders are limited to lossy audio, you can actually record full 44.1/48kHz PCM WAV. In fact, I could actually see carrying one of these to a gig alongside your pro camera; you can use the 640×480 picture as a reference and have an additional sound source.

There has to be a catch, right? Well, for starters this doesn’t give you HD video. Granted, the Zi6 and Flip HD are only 720p, and the sensors aren’t the best, but having that extra resolution can be forgiving and gives you a 16:9 aspect ratio to boot, plus lovely 60 fps. On the other hand, sensor quality and optics matter more than specs on paper; I’d settle for 640×480 picture if the video quality is good – and I can tell you right now, you’re unlikely to beat the Q3 on sound quality. (That said, a Q3 HD seems inevitable at some point.) Also, unlike an H4n, this doesn’t have a mic input jack, so you can’t easily switch over to a lavalier mic. Combined, that should mean if you’ve bought an H4n and a video camera, there’s no reason for buyers’ remorse. But this still has some use – and suggests some good stuff coming to us soon, too.

Availability: September (at least, so says @samsontech via Twitter – and in Q3, ironically enough). Pricing: Zoom says expect a US$250 street price.

Details from Samson:
Q3 – Handy Video Recorder

Via Darren Landrum.

With the weakened world economy, content in general faces plenty of gloom and doom. Advertising models are severely weakened. But, oddly, in the world of music, there are some positive signs that the shift to decentralized, online distribution might actually be going well — and maybe economic pressures are simply ensuring the parties involved find some way to make the adjustment.

And music distribution is becoming wonderfully weird and diverse – maybe far more so than in recording’s so-called golden age, an era in the past dominated by racial division, predatory labels, and a few dominant big businesses. (Money is tough as always, but it does make you wonder why we complain so.)

One sign of the shifting landscape: online streaming site Pandora is now actually calling for more performance fees — for terrestrial (AM/FM) radio, anyway. Ars Technica has been doing a great job of following the issue:

Pandora now pushing radio to pay for music, too

It seems Pandora – along with other webcasters – was able to cut a deal on webcasting rates, in a battle that put music listeners and makers at the center of a legislative struggle. Legislators had been the ones to intervene and save webcasting, under pressure from listener constituents and even musicians. Pandora founder Tim Westergren told CDM how dire a failure on these rates could be.

What the deal means is that we can return to the rosier vision of how online streaming could help promote indie musicians, something Westergren put eloquently in a 2007 interview with CDM. But looking back at Tim’s arguments from two years ago, a central tenant was fairness — meaning big, corporate radio broadcasters really ought to face a level playing field and start paying musical rights owners. (Public radio in the US, by contrast, is likely to benefit from the online deal, as public stations increasingly rely upon wider online distribution and even pledges from loyal online listeners. Moved from Omaha to Montreal? You can still listen to your favorite station.)

There are signs that not only have online music pirates moved to download stores like iTunes, eMusic, and Amazon, but to streaming solutions, as well. In one of a number of recent studies, for instance, the UK is showing online file sharing down markedly as legal streaming grows. To me, the most interesting thing about this is that it disproves a long-held industry assumption that habits, once set, wouldn’t change. For better or worse, the online world doesn’t seem to work that way.

Meanwhile, the lines between “indie” and “major” are blurring quickly. Again, Ars Technica:

Universal/TuneCore deal opens major doors for indie artists

The surprise there is that it’s not so much about distributing Universal artists exclusively – online artist services firm TuneCore is now opening its membership base to Universal and visa versa, so that Universal can discover new artists and artists get licensing and mastering services from UMG without the need for exclusive contracts with the major label. In fact, if there’s one word that sums up the future of music deals, “non-exclusivity” seems to be it.

(clarification) As kj notes in comments, I think saying this opens “major doors” is a bit of a stretch. It opens a small door at a major. But on the other hand, the idea of a label becoming an open service shop for artists – for offering, say, mastering for a fee as part of their revenue – is new and, provided it actually works, interesting. And it’s clearly part of a larger trend.

But I think the best news is the spread of unusual means of musical distribution. Eliot Van Buskirk writes a round-up of favorites for Wired Magazine. (And yes, while top ten lists are overused, they’re brilliantly appropriate when you actually have ten really awesome things.)

10 Weird Ways to Distribute Music

From soup cans to music boxes to iPhone apps, there are a few underlying trends in there. One is experimentation in the delivery mechanism itself (including 8-tracks and cassettes, really). The other is in what you can do with the media, as with the interactive remixable iTunes album, or even art books that extend what an album actually is.

As these spread, though, I have to optimistically think that this is more than desperation or brief novelty. Distribution media haven’t just shifted from one popular form to another; they’ve imploded. We’re rapidly approaching a “minority majority” situation in which no one format dominates the others. We haven’t gone from the compact cassette to the CD to the MP3. We’ve gone from the CD to MP3s, MP4s, lossless files for aficionados and lossy streams for kids who love on-demand, vintage formats, physical media and art books and software. Instead of being strange anomalies, these other formats may actually be the new normal. I think in a way the business model doesn’t matter, because, let’s face it, a lot of art making is about losing money. What drives artists is loving sharing the thing they’re making, and finding someone who wants to love it, too. Some people will make a great business model around that, while others won’t.

But if you’re a music lover, we could be facing a new golden age. And if you missed compact cassettes, good news – they’re back.

What if you could record directly online from a Web browser – no additional software needed? It’s not a new idea, but online music community Indaba has an interesting new Java-based tool that gets one step closer. We took a first look at the tool last month, but it’s now publicly available at indabamusic.com today. Indaba shared with CDM some video walking us through the feature set, and the company founders also answered some of my questions. For the musicians in the audience, we’ll have some more hands-on time with this tool to see if it’s something you can use. (My guess is, it’s something you might use alongside your existing tool of choice.) For the developers and Java fans (or skeptics), I also want to dig a little deeper in the Java and JavaFX platforms behind the scenes.

What can you do when making music in a browser?

• Work online or offline.
• Record directly online and share immediately.
• Work across platforms, directly in the browser.
• Add real-time effects, mixing, and even multitrack automation for adjusting levels.

Indaba isn’t alone in some of these features, but the ability to have high-performance, non-destructive audio effects and to record directly into the program without the typical browser restraints is definitely a step forward from other solutions.

Pricing will include a relatively full-featured free plan, plus $5/mo and $25/mo tiers adding additional clips, online storage workspace, and real-time non-destructive effects. (Video sharing service Vimeo recently adjusted their free/Pro distinction, a subject Jaymis covered for Create Digital Motion yesterday.)

Here’s our own Q&A to get things rolling:

CDM: Obviously, we have readers who are very comfortable with some existing, non-browser-based tools. But I can see them having a place for a browser tool as a supplement. How might some of those kinds of people use Indaba, as you envision it?

Indaba: The Indaba console is fully integrated with our global community of musicians, so it’s much easier to share work and collaborate on mixes. Even if your readers currently use non-browser-based tools, the Indaba console enables them to work together seamlessly from any computer without having to transfer files from machine to machine. What’s more, because the Indaba console is web-based, it can capture inspiration that strikes when artists are on the road or otherwise away from their studios. For musicians who don’t currently use complex DAWs, the Indaba console can be even more – a turnkey solution for recording, editing, and mixing.

Why JavaFX? What specifically was possible with JavaFX versus, say, Flash – given that at least some basic DSP functions we have seen in Flash?

The real decision was to build a Java application. A signed Java app gives us the freedom we need to tap into client-side hardware (sound-card, hard drive etc) and the power we need to handle multiple non-destructive effects. Other client-side technologies simply can’t offer this level of access. JavaFX gave us the ability to develop a sexy interface that wouldn’t look/feel like the stereotypical java apps of yesteryear. Going forward, this will enable us to do some pretty amazing things.

Ed. – note, that generally answer leads to some follow-up, specific development questions I have regarding implementation on Mac, Windows, and Linux, so we can talk more about those details – feel free to pass along your own thoughts and I’ll see what I can learn.

CDM: It’s nice to see the Creative Commons license on the sample materials. Will there be ways for artists using Creative Commons to release their own clips / share their own loops?

Not in this release but shortly thereafter. For now there are hundreds of clips available to our members.

Will there be an API for other sites to hook into what Indaba users are doing / what they’re doing on the Java-FX-based editing platform?

It’s definitely something we’re planning on releasing at some point. At the moment, we have private APIs for corporate partners.

What are some likely workflows with the new tool? How does that differ from previous versions?

It cuts a tremendous amount of overhead out of the process and is a simple and quick way to capture your ideas in high quality. Previously you had to download tracks, record locally, bounce them out of your DAW and upload them to the site… Now you can pop open the Console, record in high quality and mix your song all within Indaba.

Stay tuned for more details. And, of course, Indaba does have some competition on the Web; it’ll be interesting to see how it all stacks up.