AudioOrchard is now Scratch Audio

Following an unfortunate cease and desist order from another company who felt their trademark threatened, online DAW developers AudioOrchard have now renamed themselves Scratch Audio.

In addition to this they have also added a couple of new features:

1. Open any song on the site (from any user), make changes, and save your new version as a “remix” (doesn’t affect the original users version)

2. After publishing a song, if you share it on Facebook, your Facebook stream will have an actual player (instead of just a link to the song) so your friends can listen to the song directly from within Facebook.

I interviewed Eric Herbranson from the company a while back and discussed the ever evolving Silverlight based platform and their plans for the future. If you’ve not tried it out already I’d definitely recommend trying out Scratch Audio here.

AudioOrchard – New version now live

I was fortunate enough to try out the beta version of the new AudioOrchard last week and was very impressed with the new features, especially how good the Silverlight based online DAW is at recording and its new editing tools & FX.

Take a bite of the sonic apple and try it out here

AudioOrchard features teaser

I was just checking out the AudioOrchard blog just now when I noticed they have released some information on the updated version they have planned for mid-September, as well as the very promising looking screenshot above.

Sounds like they are looking to introduce the following:

• Ability to create “private” songs (i.e. only visible to you and people you invite)
• Effects (Reverb, Delay, and EQ)
• Visualization of the audio waveform (lets you “see” the music)
• Ability to trim the beginning and ending of recorded tracks
• Ability to manually position recorded tracks (i.e. drag it to the left or right)

I’ve been mighty impressed with AudioOrchard so far and ran an interview with them earlier this month – you can find that here

Review – Soundation

Having spotted a piece on it over at Rekkerd a few months ago, Soundation was the first online sequencer I ever came across. I remember being suitably impressed at the time and now it comes to really putting the tool through its paces for an in depth review its not hard to see why.

Created by PowerFX, one of the premier producers of samples and loops, Soundation offers producers a stable and intuitive means of making music from just about anywhere with an internet connection and without the need to worry about installation or updates – all for free.

In addition to this PowerFX are making their considerable collection of high quality samples available to users of Soundation via an integrated store and have created a desktop application called Audiolocker to allow users to store purchased loops as well as import their own.

The Interface & Loop Browser

Having loaded up Soundation in your browser you are presented with a well laid out interface with a browser section for loops on the right hand side. The standard features are such as volume, pan, loop and zoom are here as you’d expect but its worth point out that this Flash based DAW does actually seem a little less clunky and more responsive than some the well known desktop ones I’ve used – it really is very slick indeed.

Interview: Audio Orchard

I was recently introduced to the new cloud based DAW Audio Orchard by its creator Eric Herbrandson and was instantly impressed by its interface, recording functionality and stability. Eric agreed to answer some questions of mine about it and has provided some very interesting and engaging answers….

1. What inspired you to start working on Audio Orchard?

AudioOrchard really started as an idea when the major browser plug-ins (i.e. Flash, Silverlight, Java FX) started adding low level audio support. The first question was “were these plug-ins powerful enough to run a DAW in the browser?” So we did a little experimenting and realized it was very possible. After that, the question became “who cares?” The fact that it was technically possible to run a recording studio in the browser might be interesting from a technical standpoint (at least if you’re a geek like us anyways), but why would a typical musician opt for an online tool over the existing (and very powerful) tools already out there today? In thinking about that question, we started talking about the “web 2.0” movement from a few years back, which to us was really about sites that connected people. Sites like Facebook, Twitter, and Google Docs are all about harnessing the power of these new fangled inter-webs to  enable people to connect and interact in new ways. Ways that just weren’t possible in the past. At this point we got pretty excited because we really thought we were on to something. We could take the social aspect of Facebook that we’ve all come to love and mash it into the heart of the recording process. We felt we could create something that would be a really exciting and unique experience for musicians.

Soundation now has an online guide

Soundation – the online DAW developed by PowerFX now has a comprehensive online guide. This new “learn” section covers all the available features in great depth and is a must for anyone looking to try out the tool.

You can find it here

Indaba Music – new features preview

Looks like Indaba Music are getting ready to grace us with the latest version of their online music website and community. They released a sneak preview yesterday which listed new user and community features including improved chat, statistics and an updated media library.

I covered their Mantis online DAW early in the month and will be looking at their community and collaboration features in more depth once this latest version is available.

More details can be found here 

[UPDATE] – Looks like Indaba are going to update the page over the course of the week so worth visiting back to see what else gets announced!

Introducing: Audio Orchard

Looks like there is a new player in town – Audio Orchard.

Boasting  a slick and well laid out interface this new online DAW is looking like its set to become a major player in the world of cloud based recording. It currently runs on Microsoft’s Siverlight platform and offers a very stable means of recording, a drum machine with a wide range of drum hits available and the ability to import loops – including your own. Also on offer is the means of promotion via social media and sharing with potential collaborators – as we have come to expect from our online DAW’s

Audio Orchard is still in beta and is due to have additional features such as FX and audio editing added in the near future. In the meantime you can find it, and I recommend you do, at www.audioorchard.com

Tracks and Fields to open “Producer Marketplace”

This is interesting – at the bottom of today’s  press release from Tracks and Fields there is a brief announcement that they will be opening a “trading platform for producers to license their samples, loops, beats and instruments to others for either exclusive/non–exclusive commercial use”.

Potentially I think this could be a winner for artists and producers looking for some extra revenue from their skills and look forward to seeing how it will be delivered. I’ll be covering Tracks and Fields in detail in the coming months but in the meantime I recommend taking a look at their online music production tools and community here

Bojam no more?

It doesn’t please me to have to report this but it looks like Bojam, an online DAW and music community may now be closed for business. A rather sad message on their website suggests “Things aren’t going so well” but does suggest coming back soon.

I do hope that Andrew and the Bojam team are still in business as their product had some great ideas behind it, including the potenital for users to sell their tracks directly to online music stores like iTunes.