This site will remain live for the articles hosted here but the new one looks at lot nicer so why not check it out…

Many thanks!

Edward James Bass

In an e-mail sent out yesterday Ohm Force announced that, following a succesful Alpha test their forthcoming collaborative DAW – Ohm Studio will be ready for Beta test in January.

I covered Ohm Studio and some of the possible features that may be included in this article a couple of months ago.

Hey there,

First of all I’d like to say a big thanks to all the developers, music tech companies, producers and general supporters that have contacted me with your support for Audio Silver Lining in the past six months – you make of all of this worthwhile

In the new year ASL is going to be evolving into something more than just a blog. Ideally what I am looking to create is an online resource and community around online audio tools which benefits musicians, producers and developers alike.

Here’s what I’m planning to roll out over the next few months…

Redesign – I’ll be moving to the hosted WordPress solution soon and as part of this will be putting a new aesthetic in place. A fairly large hint at what this will look like is in the above pic!

Online community – Its time to get you people talking to each other! I’ve already started a Linkedin group for developers but next year I’ll be setting up a community for everyone interested in online audio tools and music services, be they developers, musicians, DJ’s or producers. Please let me know what features would benefit you best here – this is going to be your community and I need you to help me build it!

Reader Content – Aside from showcasing readers tracks on a more regular basis, I’d like to get more video on the site. I’m certainly interested on showcasing product videos from developers as well as any relevant ones from readers in general.

Advertising – Since it really is starting to look like 2011 is the year online music production breaks into the mainstream I think its time I started including a few subtle ads to help guide people to the various solutions out there. In addition to these products I’m open to featuring ads for other emerging music tech such as mobile apps as well since I think these tools also interest ASL’s general audience. I’m also interested in  running competitions in collaboration with vendors/developers since I feel that this is a great way to get people to start working with new platforms and source ideas and content.

Artist features/interviews – I’ve already stumbled across a few producers using online DAW’s and sequencers to make tracks and in the future am going to start showcasing their work. Anyone who wants to be part of this please do get in touch and feel free to drop me a track over – I do listen to them all!

Developer features – As you probably know I already run “Introducing” posts on new and exciting products and services in this space. I’d like the new site to feature a similar thing for those of you developing in Flash, HTML5 and Silverlight. If possible I’d like to embed some examples of their work in the site as well.

Things are already well underway with all of this and, if everything goes according to plan you’ll see the site start to change over the next couple of weeks – apologies in advance for any downtime there may be since sometimes these things don’t always go as smoothly as you’d hope!

Thanks for all your kind words so far – and here’s to the future!

Edward James Bass

Mixlr - the  web streaming platform that allows you to easily share your sets and performances with audiences online is now open to everybody. If you’ve not tried it yet I’d suggest signing up for the free 15 day trial here

The platform offers the following features to those looking to stream their performances to the world:  

- Broadcast live to the world in seconds from your microphone, decks, mixing desk or favourite software on Microsoft Windows or Mac OSX.

- Share your broadcasts with friends, fans and colleagues. Listeners can tune in via the web, iPhone, iPad and mobile devices.

- Save and publish your broadcasts on your Showreel for everybody to listen back to later. Or if you prefer, archive them privately using our great value Simple Storage.

- Schedule and promote your upcoming broadcasts.

- Subscribe to other users to receive instant updates when they start broadcasting.

I’ve been that impressed with it that I’ve recently streamed a set from the superb singer songwriter David V. Murphy (and have more performance planned in the future) – you can find that here

Burn Studios, who will be introducing the pioneering Burn Studios Audiotool online production platform next year, have announced a remix competition in association with Resident Advisor which gives you the chance to remix a track by Plastikman, aka electronic dance music innovator Richie Hawtin

Burn Studios continues its tech partnership with leading audio and visual technology leader Avid – the company behind the M-Audio and Pro Tools music technology product brands – to offer the competition winner an exclusive Avid Gift Voucher worth €2,500.

Online audio sharing site SoundCloud is also partnering with Burn Studios for this competitionpresenting the winner with an annual Soundcloud Pro account worth €250. Five runners up will each receive an M-Audio Torq MixLab DJ kit, an Avid Recording Studio package and a Souncloud Lite account.

The track in question is “Ask Yourself” from Plastikman’s  album “Closer” and the remix will appear on the digital release of the highly anticipated “Plastikman Arkives” box set.

You can download the remix parts (and get more info) here

First of all I’d like to say a big thanks to all the readers of ASL for making last month the busiest so far – you make it all worthwhile!

I’ve got some big news coming up a bit later in the month but in the meantime if you’ve not done so already please take a look at the Twitter news site I’ve set up – Digital Music Daily and, if you’re interested in sharing your thoughts around online audio tools with others then join the Linkedin group covering Online Music & Audio Production tools

Here’s a quick round up of what’s been covered this past month…

Features

Making Music: Aviary’s online music tools – Roc – http://wp.me/pX9Fu-mA

Developer Focus: Jordan’s Things – http://wp.me/pX9Fu-m1

Introducing: Virtual Recording Studio – http://wp.me/pX9Fu-lP

News

AudioOrchard is now Scratch Audio – http://wp.me/pX9Fu-ly

Its the…Hexcylindrical arpeggiator! – http://wp.me/pX9Fu-lG 

SoundCloud now connected to over 100 apps – http://wp.me/pX9Fu-lN

ReBirth reborn on Audiotool – http://wp.me/pX9Fu-lT

Superb article covering the use of Flash, HTML5 & Silverlight for audio solutions… http://wp.me/pX9Fu-lX

Mixlr adds downloads & email reminders – http://wp.me/pX9Fu-m9

Music Hackday at MIDEM announced – http://wp.me/pX9Fu-mg

Berlin based audio sharing platform SoundCloud have announced today a rather splendid new feature in the form of recording.

This new functionality – which is available via both the SoundCloud site and their iOS app will allow users to record audio and instantly share it via social networks, blogs and forums thanks to the platforms easily embedded player widget  – which seems to work just about anywhere these days.

You can read more about this on their blog post here

Those of you familiar with Aviary will know that in recent years they have made it their mission to make creativity tools more accessible by offering their own free to use online solutions.

Although better known for their visual editing tools they also now have an sequencer and audio editor called (in their tradition of naming their products after our feathered friends) Roc and Myna respectively, and its the first of these solutions I’ll be taking a look at in this article.

Roc is essentially a basic and easy to use sample based sequencer which allows you to build patterns from provided sample sets or either record or import your own. As you can see from the screenshot simplicity is key here – although I have to admit it took a little bit of exploring to get a grasp of how to access some of the available features.

In terms of actually creating patterns however I’m not sure Roc could be more intuitive and easy and I found I was happily working away with the Flash based interface in no time at all – especially since Aviary have been kind enough to include a fairly wide range of sample hits to play with.

The only real area where I felt there could be some development was with regards to the editing of individual samples since, although this feature was available, it didn’t seem to want to allow me to trim the sample in the way I wanted.

With my drum pattern created in Roc I decided to save it to Aviary’s servers, where its now free for anyone to use as it can be downloaded (WAV or Mp3), sent by email, edited in Myna or even embedded. Now that’s what I call sharing!

In the next part of this article I’ll be taking a look at Myna, Aviary’s web based audio editor – so stay tuned!

I’ve set up a Linkedin group for any readers who use Linkedin and want to discuss stuff.

In order to access it you need to log in to your Linkedin profile and then go here

Enjoy!

As you’d probably expect, I’m what you’d call a fairly avid reader of all things to do with Digital Music and how its evolving so, in order to allow myself and others an easy means of digesting all that’s going on in this area on a daily basis I’ve created Digital Music Daily – which takes content from some of the best blogs that report on this area and feeds it into a web based newspaper format.

If you’ve a blog you want included in the paper then let me know – I’m looking at building something really useful here!