There is an iPhone or iPod app available for free on iTunes for Movement 2010, Detroit’s Electronic Music Festival. It’s actually a great idea and an excellent resource for festival goers. You can check out the entire festival lineup, the entire lineup by stage or the lineup for each day by stage. From the lineup pages you can check out artists bios and visit links to websites, videos on YouTube and music on Beatport and iTunes.

The most useful feature on the Movement app is the ability to add artist’s sets to your own schedule: a better alternative than carrying around an outdated, tree-killing, printed schedule or aimlessly scratching your head while wandering to your next destination. There’s a map of the Movement festival grounds and a list of ‘official’ (aka ‘not interested’) afterparties. Also included is a cool friend finder that allows you to move an “I AM HERE” arrow around pictures of the festival stages and maps to help your friends find you. Sounds corny? Maybe. Have I spent more festival time trying to find people than hearing music? Some years. Will I use it? Come on.

To pass the time in between bass pounding sets the app includes a music note icon in the upper left hand corner which allows you to stream Paxahau radio anywhere.

Fucking technology… and thankfully the wallpaper for the app is not that creepy, emo Plastikman live promo pic of Richie. He looks like the gay younger brother from Wedding Crashers. You know, the one that likes to paint…

Visit iTunes to download the Movement 2010 App.

Digidesign, makers Pro Tools, the industry standard in Digital Audio Workstations (DAW), as well as a slew of plug-ins, consoles and live performance rigs, is retiring… well, the name at least. The end of Digidesign and their flagship software Pro Tools is far from over, but parent company Avid, makers of video and film software, has decided to merge Pro Tools, as well as their other three major companies, M-Audio, Pinnacle and Sibelius, under the umbrella name Avid.

So what does the new company name mean for Digidesign? Not much really; Pro Tools will still be ProTools and staff and support will remain virtually unchanged. The only change customers will notice will be the Avid name and new logo on upcoming packaging and a new website that will be launching on April 12, 2010.

Avid promises the new site will include improved navigation, organization and overall  user experience. The new Avid.com will include all current Digidesign.com pages. At first, the new site will only include Digidesign US, but within a few months the international Digidesign websites will be included as well.

Who will see the biggest advantage? Customers who purchase products from multiple Avid companies; such as ProTools HD for DAW, M-Audio Axiom Pro 49 for a MIDI controller and Sibelius for scoring music. Digidesign.com will be the first company website to integrate into Avid.com, but M-Audio.com, Sibelius.com and Pinnaclesys.com will soon follow suite. This complete transition will begin providing multi product line customers benefits like a simplified product registration, single login ID, and a one-stop source for all product information, support, downloads and news.

The biggest advantage most likely will come by the way of new products and current product integration – like the recent additions Pro Tools M-Powered, Video Satellite between Media Composer and Pro Tools, and Sibelius integration into Pro Tools. Think of Adobe after their acquisition Macromedia – each of the company’s related software now integrate seamlessly, allowing users to flip back and forth, starting projects in one program and polishing in another, using each programs unique benefits to your advantage. Don’t rule out the possibility of suite packages or integrated plug-in packages.

Now available for download is the TwitterDJ application. DJ pioneer/Producer/Label Owner Richie Hawtin and his Minus label helped develop this application that tweets each track a DJ plays during a set in (nearly) real time. You can see the application in action @ his twitter account, www.twitter.com/rhawtin. The app utilizes an updated version of Traktor’s standard broadcasting technology and the popular social site twitter.com. Traktor being the Djing software that allows you to mix digital music internally within the software or externally with a standard mixer, turntables or CD decks and timecoded vinyl or CDs; depending on the software version (just in case you’ve been locked in a padded room flippin old tresor wax for the last decade and finally decided to conform).

TwitterDj is currently only available to run on Intel based Macs running OS X 10.5 and Xcode software. You will also need Native Intruments Trakt5o Pro 1.2 and Icecast 2.3.2 or higher.

This type of technology is an excellent step in promotional advancement for digitally released music. This gives an artist, and typically their independent label, the opportunity to gain further recognition for their music as its being played by a performer. How many times have you heard a track at a party, then again at another, frantically needing to add it to the collection but every pain-staking effort to find it on the small information you have is entirely fruitless? Yes, it may take a little something away from those diligent heads who scour through dusty crates and scan thousands of samples before finding those gems; only to broadcast your find to the world so it can be soaked up by some brat who lets his software beatmatch for him. But there are inventive ways around such things. Maybe counterproductive, but there’s always a way… Or, like a good friend pointed out to me, how annoying will it be with a bunch of techie-hipsters standing around at a club, too cool to dance, face lit up from the warm glow of their iphones, anxiously awaiting the next track tweet.

But (after years of denial and sly looks in the mirror) I excepted the fact that you must embrace technology and the information trade. The faster technology is adopted and the more it is exposed leads to faster development. It’s just the way it is, you can either your turn your back on it in denial… or except it. It will still continue to exist either way.

I doubt it was any internet backlash that got the nin:access app back on the approval list… but it makes geeks with egos feel good, so let’s just leave it at that. Still can’t use special characters for passwords, but hey, a simple password change and I’m up.

Nine Inch Nails APP: Approved and Here. Download it for free at iTunes.

Radiohead won the Best Alternative Album Award for their record, ‘In Rainbows’. They also performed a song from the album, ’15 Step.’ This would be the band’s first ever performance at the Grammys. Their performance was backed by the University of Southern California (USC)’s renowned marching band. Radiohead beat out competition from: Beck – ‘Modern Guilt’, Gnarls Barkley – ‘The Odd Couple’, Death Cab For Cutie – ‘Narrow Stairs’, My Morning Jacket – ‘Evil Urges’.

New video for Black Balloon, directed by Kenneth Capello. The track is planned to be released on an upcoming EP as well. Hopefully, we’ll see some new material or bonus tracks/remixes. Hands down, The Kills most recent studio album, Midnight Boom, is one of the best albums of 2008. Sometimes it’s the most simplistic music that is the most powerful and this takes the cake. Stand-out  guitar riffs, a drum machine, vocals and solid songwriting make Midnight Boom an extremely memorable album. Still enjoying it…but literally can’t wait for another release. The Kills are currently on tour in Germany, Australia, New Zealand and the States.

Ableton Live had plenty to announce at this year’s Winter NAMM conference. First, of course, they’re announcing Ableton Live 8 and Ableton Suite 8. With a great new intuative warping engine. They’ve also announced a dedicated controller for Live from Akai, the APC40 (Ableton Performance Controller), as well as Max For Live, a collaboration with Cycling ’74 that allows you to do Max programming within Ableton’s sequencer. Basically, allowing you to build and create your own effects and instruments from scratch, leaving Ableton Live even more limitless.

Akai APC40

Max for Live Patching

The last sense to be featured before the launch of the new beatport is touch. I have to say, they’ve saved some of the best additions for last (as they should). What’s the real focus? Functionality. A very inventive piece, for any website, is the new docking feature. Both the playlist and MyBeatport can be docked into the side of the site. You can dock one on either side of the site, or both on one for space conservation. They’ve also added a few new, cool track features. One is adding track art to each song; sounds minuscule, but who wants to scroll though all those default “music note icons” in iTunes Cover Flow view? Two is increasing the preview quality of tracks, definitely a plus in the decision making process; I’ve squashed a few tracks because of shitty sounding previews and later heard them rocked at a party…ouch. They’ve also added a link and rss button to every page on the site. RSS is very nice if you want quick updates on your favorite artists, genres or labels and the link button is great for artists who want to conveniently help promote their own music on Beatport. Another nicely added feature is keyboard commands for for lightning fast browsing (check the tutorial vid for all commands). Hands down, the best feature in this sense…the site now better communicates with your browser. Whats that mean for you? The browser back button acts as it would on any other website. Much, much needed.

One of the newest digital Dj softwares, which has received numerous praise, has announced an update which promises innovative new creative tools and workflow enhancements. Torq 1.5 brings even more creative options to the only digital DJ workstation designed to merge live DJ performance and advanced music production. New features in Torq 1.5 software include Tempo Anchors, Tempo Master, zplane élastique time stretching, send/receive MIDI Clock, a new toolbar and a variety of workflow enhancements.

The software’s new Tempo Anchors allow users to set the phase grid exactly on the beats of the song, even if the song changes tempo. Tempo Anchors make it possible for Torq to remove tempo variations from songs so you can easily blend old styles and new. For example, if you have an old ‘70s funk song that was recorded without a click, Tempo Anchors enable you to perfectly match that song with the steady beat of today’s computer-driven productions. You can also assign a track you’re spinning to serve as the Tempo Master for everything in Torq, so looped samples and other tempo-based features will automatically match the natural tempo changes in the song.

Torq 1.5 software can also send and receive MIDI Clock for total synchronization with drum machines, effects boxes and other computers. Multiple DJs can connect with each other and share the same tempo across systems, which improves collaboration between artists.

View More of the new features in Torq 1.5.