Key Of Grey

Xeraphine's DIY Laptop Stand June 15th, 2010 - I was out at a gig a couple weekends ago and although I brought a laptop stand, it didn't work out that well for the environment I was in. One of the problems with playing out is that you can't always control your environment. In this case, having a smaller footprint and having my laptop raised more would have helped out immensely. There are several companies that make good raised laptop stands (Stanton's Uberstand and Griffin's ... Read More

Photo courtesy of tnl June 14th, 2010 - If you have a set of earphones whose cord always seems to get tangled, you ought to take a look at this paracord sleeve mod. Basically, you will end up feeding your earphone wire through the core of the paracord, and use it as a sort of super sleeve. Not only will the cord be thicker, thereby reducing the chances of tangles, but it will also resist bending which can cause breaks in the delicate ... Read More

Photo courtesy of BobsDogHouse June 13th, 2010 - I've always been fascinated by thumb pianos. Probably because they sound so earthy, and they're so simple. When I pluck away at one, it's hard not to smile. If you've ever handled one, their construction is fairly simple, so why not make your own? Instructables user BobsDogHouse has written a DIY article on building one and the end result looks very polished. DIY Thumb Piano Read More

Photo courtesy of mistic June 6th, 2010 - User mistic on Instructables has posted a tutorial on creating a "mini-piano". Well it's actually more of a mini-harpsichord since the strings are plucked rather than struck. It's a pretty cool idea, and while it may not look so great, I'm sure you can get some pretty nifty sounds out of it. There's a video on the Instructable site that you can watch if you're a registered user (sign up is free), so you can ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Novation June 4th, 2010 - Novation, maker of the Launchpad and series of nifty MIDI keyboards, has just released the Dicer, a mini-MIDI controller that's designed to be a trigger for your DJ software. While it's Serato-certified, you can also map it to Traktor and others. The Dicer bridges the gap between the pure vinyl spinners, and the new cue-point juggling style of controllerists. The interesting part though is not necessarily the device itself which is admittedly nifty and affordable ($99 ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Livid Instruments June 3rd, 2010 - I've posted about Livid Instruments' Builders series before and now they have a design contest running. Design the perfect controller, upload your designs, and the Livid Instruments staff will vote on their favorite. The winning one will become a reality with all the parts, case, and faceplate (within reason) sent to you; you will still need to assemble it yourself though. There are design requirements, so check out the contest page linked below for more ... Read More

Photo courtesy of Samson June 1st, 2010 - Not content to rest on its Zoom H4 and H2 laurels, Samson has released the Zoom H1, a seriously small digital recorder capable of 24-bit 96 khz recording. While it's not going to be competing against Sanyo's six freaking microphones, it's still an impressive piece of kit. With the H1, it also looks like Samson has eschewed the utilitarian look of its siblings for a streamlined look. The Zoom H1 has dedicated buttons for most of ... Read More

Photo courtesy of gregveen May 31st, 2010 - If Ethan Winer's acoustic treatment manual was too long, and Auralex's was a tad too complicated, check out the AudioTut's tutorial. It's specifically designed to be practical for home studio enthusiasts, and yet still have enough information to scale it up if you move into a bigger space. There's a lot of great information in it, and it even serves as a good primer into the Ethan Winer and Auralex ones when you're ready. A Basic ... Read More

May 26th, 2010 - Have you ever wanted to take your Guitar Hero skills out in the real world? Want to be a "proficient guitarist without having to go through the rigmarole of learning chords and fingerings"? Well the Paper JamZ is for you! Screw practicing fingerings, and getting ugly callouses, the Paper JamZ allows you to play major, minor, and seventh chords by putting 1, 2, or 3 fingers on a fret. Ugh...seriously, I don't know who thought these were a good ... Read More

May 24th, 2010 - Ok, you might be wondering why I'm posting about a hard drive on a music site. Well, the Seagate Momentus XT was launched today and it's interesting for people who make music on laptops because it's an affordable hybrid drive. For those of you who aren't well-versed in computer hardware, a hybrid drive is a drive that merges a solid state drive (SSD) with a traditional platter-based drive. Solid state drives have no moving parts and have very quick ... Read More