Articles about Music

Twenty-second in a series. It has been a busy week filled with announcements and updates regarding Windows Store. The core applications Windows 8 Mail, Calendar and People got updated. Calendar users were in for a surprise if they used to sync their data with Google Calendar, as that does not work anymore after the update. The Mail app received significant improvements, including the ability to create, rename and delete folders inside the application and options to flag emails as important.

The People app got a new feature that lets you post messages to the Facebook Wall of friends, and the Calendar app received an interface makeover. Microsoft updated Xbox Music, too -- a new volume control option now acts independently from system volume and there are several other features, including the ability to make songs added to Xbox Music available on all compatible devices.

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In theory, every time you import MP3 files to a PC you should rename them to follow consistent rules, then save them in an appropriate folder where they’ll be easy to find, later. In practice, of course, life’s too short -- so it’s just as well that MusicZen can handle all this for you.

The program is available as a tiny (627KB) executable, and it really couldn’t be much easier to use. At a minimum all you have to do is download and run it, choose the folder where your MP3s are right now, and a destination folder where the finished results will be stored. Then click “Organize”, and watch as the program goes to work.

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Back when Microsoft launched Windows Phone 8, in late-October last year, the company promised that Pandora would arrive on the smartphone operating system sometime in early 2013, bringing along with it a year's worth of free music with no ads.

Today, Microsoft has kept its promise and delivered the popular app on the Windows Phone store. On Twitter, Microsoft's Joe Belfiore announced: "Oh heck, been dying to share PANDORA! Totally free, no ads through 2013. Best Pandora on any phone, IMO".

And the app, indeed, touts "no ads and no monthly streaming limit...for FREE". On Windows Phone 8, Pandora allows users to pin favorite stations on the homescreen and see what is playing by looking at the Pandora live tile. Other exclusive features include filtering explicit content using Kid's Corner to keep the youngsters away from sensitive music and the ability to access a recent stations page and look at the current favorites.

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Social sharing and video-editing service Givit gets more musical, in an announcement made during SXSW in Austin today. The Givit app is exclusive to iOS and seeks to be to videos what Instagram is to photos.

The new focus is all about music videos or setting moments to music, and iPad, iPhone or iPod touch users shooting, editing and sharing the creations -- straight from the device. "Anyone can now create an amazing music video or reimagine their favorite moments right from their iPhone, adding new clips, sound or transitions and share socially however they choose", Givit CEO Greg Kostello says.

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Nineteenth in a series. Welcome to this week's episode of our ongoing series about some of the best new apps that released this week for the Windows 8 operating system.

The app count grew to 31,448 apps in the US Windows Store, which is an increase of 1,149 apps in total; 824 of those apps are listed as free in the store while the remaining 325 apps are listed commercial applications or desktop programs listed in Store.

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It is the one year anniversary of Google Play store -- or at least the renaming of the Android market. Google loves to celebrate these kinds of occasions with a sale. This one is no exception, as the company has kicked off with deals on music, books, magazines, videos and, of course, apps.

Jamie Rosenberg, the vice president of Digital Content at Google Play announced the deals today, saying that "since no birthday is complete without presents, we’re celebrating with a bunch of special offers across the store on songs, TV shows, movies and books. We’re even offering a collection of games with some fun birthday surprises created by developers".

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Remember how last year the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) managed to persuade the UK High Court to order ISPs to block the Pirate Bay, in order to completely eradicate piracy and save the music industry?

Well as it turns out, that didn’t quite do the trick, so the BPI has returned to the High Court and this time it’s Kickass Torrents, H33T and Fenopy which are being blocked. A move which, of course, will definitely stop piracy this time. A bit like how, when Jessops went bust in the UK, no one was able to buy cameras any more.

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If you’d like to edit an audio file then there’s plenty of free tools around to help, however most of them are prone to altering your files in unexpected ways. To test this yourself, just open any file, save it with a different name, and compare that file with the original. Even though you’ve not performed any operations on the second file at all, you’ll still often find there are differences, and inevitably that’s going to mean some compromise in sound quality.

WaveShop takes an alternative approach. The program is specifically designed to be bit-perfect, only altering your audio when it’s absolutely necessary. So if you open a file and then save it immediately, there will be no changes. And if you carry out some editing task on one area of the file -- fade it out at the end, say -- everything else remains exactly as it was.

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Debate is fierce about whether smartphones and tablets cannibalize PC sales. Surely, we can all agree that these device subsume dedicated MP3 players. Top-selling iPod is product in declining demand, while today NPD puts hard numbers behind changing music-listening habits. Which reminds me, I promised to set up my wife's Rdio account over the weekend. We got a family plan a few days back. She'll stream on Google Nexus 4 or 10 and download some tracks for offline ear-banging.

She's not alone. Fifty-six of U.S. smartphone users listen to music on the device -- 40 percent for tablets, according to NPD. I'm in the latter category on Nexus 7. Consumption is up, with 54 percent of smartphone music listeners doing more than a year ago and 39 percent tuning in at least once a day.

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The timing could not be better. Yesterday my wife received her shiny new Nokia Lumia 822 and today she can now use it to play music from the streaming service Spotify. Oh, she probably will not because, not her thing, but she could, and that is the important thing because the option was not available to her, or any other Windows Phone 8 customers, yesterday.

Today Microsoft's Michael Stroh proudly announces that Spotify has now found a home in the Windows Phone Store. The app is still in beta, which means users may experience a bit of a hiccup here and there, but customers can "instantly increases the size of your music library by millions of tracks, making it easy to discover new songs and artists. You can create your own playlists, or browse and indulge in the ones your friends put together". It also features the ability to download playlists to your handset for listening at times when you are not within range of a connection. Tracks added from the phone app also show on your computer.

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In a move that aims to consolidate the company's branded app selection on Lumia Windows Phones, Nokia has unveiled a new, subscription-based premium service dubbed Nokia Music+, that builds atop of the established Nokia Music platform. A "+" sign can make quite the difference.

Music+ is not designed to replace currently available free services such as Mix Radio, but rather to offer Lumia owners the paid option for "unlimited music discovery". The Finnish manufacturer says that Music+ is aimed at "people who care enough about music to pay something for more quality and choice" and, depending on the user's location, will run for around EUR3.99 or $3.99 per month. But what are the advantages?

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Eleventh in a series. Microsoft has updated two of the native apps that Windows 8 ships with this week. The News and Finance apps have received updates that enhance performance, improve network connectivity and add support for additional regional sources.

A total of 24,749 apps are listed in the US Windows 8 store this Friday. Of those, 20,019 are free to download and install, while 4,730 are paid applications. That's an increase of 961 apps this week.

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The most important tech news this week isn't from the Consumer Electronics Show. Amazon earns distinction, with a new service that, if rightly executed, could change how everyone buys digital content. Not since Apple licensed digital tracks for the iTunes Store in early 2003 and later secured deals allowing consumers to buy a single and get the rest of the album for appropriately-reduced cost is a music service so provocative. Amazon AutoRip is as big as DRM-free and looms over Apple's iTunes Match -- and both transform music licensing and consumption.

Can you feel it? The Earth shook today, and nothing will be the same because of it.

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Exstream Software Development, the team responsible for Android four-track app Audio Evolution Mobile, has released an app called USB Audio Recorder Pro which lets users attach USB microphones and other USB audio interfaces to Android 3.1+ devices that support USB host mode.

Musicians, podcasters, and filmmakers alike can now attach microphones to their Android tablet or smartphone and record mono or stereo 16- or 24-bit audio, and also play back over their USB device. Many of the recording variables depend upon the audio interface and Android device that are being used, but the maximum sample rate the app supports is 192 kHz, and files can be saved as wav/flacc/ogg on internal or removable storage.

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The SZ Development released Free Music Downloader 1.30, the latest edition of its MP3 download tool, and the update is mainly about extending its list of supported sites.

The program provides a simple, free and portable way to search a number of sources for music. This update adds support for BandCamp, Hypem and Xiami to the existing list of sites and services, which also includes www.last.fm, vkontakte.ru, goear.com, GrooveShark.com, SoundCloud.com, mixcloud.com, ProstoPleer.com and 8Tracks.com. Elsewhere, a bug fix sees LastFM searches and downloads working again.

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