Crave

Musicians are a paradox when it comes to technology. They have voracious appetites for the latest, greatest gear, but unlike the average tech consumer, they also have a near-religious reverence for all things vintage.

Looking back on what I consider the year's coolest gear for musicians, the thread that ties it all together (well, most of it) is this balance of new and antique. From a guitar pedal that sounds like a tube amplifier from 1959, to USB interfaces that return the look and feel of a pre-Pro Tools era--music tech has a unique way of pushing forward while always acknowledging the past.

To see my completely subjective roundup of 2009's most interesting music gear, click though to our Crave slideshow. If you have some other 2009 music gear you'd like to champion, feel free to add it in the comments section.

Musician tech roundup, 2009

The Vestax Spin gets spun.

(Credit: Donald Bell/CNET)

There's never been a better time to get into DJing. Gone are the days when DJs had to break their backs hauling turntables, record crates, and heavy analog mixes. Today, just combine a laptop, a USB DJ control surface, and a hard drive full of MP3s, and get ready to set the roof ablaze.

That said, professional DJ control surfaces aren't exactly cheap. Two of my personal favorites, the Vestax VCI-300 and the Numark NS7, hover around the $1,000 mark.

For those looking to dip their feet into digital DJing, but not quite $1,000 deep, the Vestax Spin ($249) offers a ton of bang for the buck. A stripped-down version of the Vestax VCI-300, the Spin delivers on the DJ dream of two (virtual) turntables and a microphone, powered by Algoriddim's Mac-only DJay software.

Vestax Spin (photos)

Beyond the requisite smattering of knobs and faders, the heart of the Vestax Spin are the twin, weighted platters used to control song playback. The top of each platter includes a metal surface that acts as a capacitive touch control to stop and manipulate audio playback with uncanny responsiveness. Having used the more expensive VCI-300, I can tell you these are the exact same platters. However, the Spin does not include the individual tension adjustment knobs.

Existing VCI-300 users shouldn't cry themselves to sleep over paying four times as much for their version, since there are some considerable drawbacks to the Spin compared to its higher-priced cousin. For starters, the outputs are RCA only, you can't insert multiple cue points, you can't route in external audio sources (beyond the mic), and the overall construction is far less rugged. Most importantly, the Spin is permanently married to the bundled DJay software--which is a fine program, but lacks PC support and doesn't include the outstanding waveform display of Serato Itch.

Pro DJ gripes aside, the Vestax Spin represents one of the better values in the amateur DJ market. It is currently sold exclusively through the Apple store.

For a closer look at the Vestax Spin, check out our Crave photo gallery.

Amidio makes some heavy-duty musical apps for the iPhone and iPod Touch; I was particularly impressed with StarGuitar, which gives you a virtual guitar with a bunch of preset rhythms, letting songwriters create quick sketches of ideas when they're nowhere near a guitar.

I created a nice vocal loop from the new Beach House single, then dropped it into Pink Floyd's "Astronomy Domine." It took me about five minutes.

On Tuesday, Apple approved a new Amidio app, called TouchDJ, for the iPhone and iPod Touch, and it's both very impressive from a technical standpoint and a heck of a lot of fun. The iPhone can only play one audio track at a time, but TouchDJ essentially fools it into placing two MP3s side by side for simultaneous, real-time manipulation and playback. It's like a two-track digital DJ setup right on your iPhone.

You get a crossfader to control the balance between the two tracks, plus individual controls for each track's volume, pitch/speed (which aren't independent from one another, unfortunately), equalization (three bands), and effects (the built-in real-time effect sounds like a kind of flanger, and there are several lame samples of a low-pitched robot voice, but you can upload your own). Each track is represented by simple waveform images that use a different color for the bass, which helps you match beats more effectively. A tempobend effect, which lets you quickly bend the speed up or down on either track, also helps you get in sync.

The looping functions were most impressive--you can create a cue and loop mark at any point in either track, then return to the cue with the rewind button, move to the loop mark with the fast forward button, or create an endless loop between the two points. All of this is in real time. If you've got an audio splitter, you can even create a separate cue track for your headphones--for example, to set up a loop in your second track while the first one is playing, without exposing your experimentation to your audience--although this requires some serious processing power, and is recommended only for an iPhone 3GS.

There are a couple caveats.... Read More

When it comes to digital DJing, your laptop's trackpad can only do so much. The Kontrol X1 brings a solid set of controls to complement Native Instrument's Traktor DJ software.

(Credit: Native Instruments)

Native Instruments' Traktor DJ software is an industry standard for legions of digital DJs with laptop-based rigs. Unfortunately, as the company's software has grown increasingly sophisticated, the prospect of using your laptop's trackpad to control it becomes a bit ridiculous.

Native Instruments Traktor Kontrol X1 -- photos

In an effort to make your laptop's trackpad obsolete, Native Instruments is launching a dedicated USB DJ controller named Traktor Kontrol X1. Due to hit shelves in February of 2010, the Kontrol X1 includes every knob, button, and slider a DJ could desire, and touts a retail price of $229.

A stripped-down version of Traktor DJ software (Traktor LE) comes included, and offers an upgrade path to the proper Traktor Duo and Traktor Pro versions. Also realize that there's no sound card built into the X1, so beginners may need to pick up something like the Audio 2 DJ to flesh out a proper four-channel DJ rig.

We have a photo gallery of Kontrol X1 shots for your perusal, along with NI's own overview video detailing the controller's many blinking features.

As the music games genre overflows with add-on packs for Guitar Hero and Rock Band (and too many plastic guitar variations to count), consumers might be feeling a little gun-shy about adding a turntable to the mix. Smartly, however, Activision has countered the skepticism by adding what might be the best video game soundtrack of all time to DJ Hero.

Ninety-three tracks (double the amount on The Beatles: Rock Band) of unique mashups and remixes from some of the world's most renowned DJs are not only great listening, but each one takes two excellent source songs to make music with. That's actually 186 songs floating around somewhere in this game.

Scott:
The turntable in DJ Hero almost feels like an afterthought compared with the track selection, but it's solid and thankfully compact, with a free-spinning platter that's extremely smooth. The plastic buttons, crossfader, and other knobs feel a little jiggly, but the rubber feet beneath will make sure the controller stays put on a table.

To make music in DJ Hero, a very similar-looking "notes approaching" interface is repurposed to resemble a spinning record. Three different note-tracks are controlled by pressing colored buttons on the plastic turntable, just like Guitar Hero or Rock Band. You can also scratch the notes by pressing and turning at the same time.

On the left side of the controller, the crossfader is activated during certain zig-zaggy cues in the track, and alternates the two tracks. Above that is a "euphoria" button that is DJ Hero's version of "star power." Beside that is also a knob that either controls pitch effects during some sections, or selects sound effects in another portion of gameplay. As you can imagine, it starts to get complicated. DJ Hero might have one knob too many, but it adds to the feel of deck manipulation, and keeps your hands pretty busy. The end result--awesome hip-hop--is worth the effort.

Months ago, we were skeptical about DJ Hero--we worried that it was shameless music game exploitation. We were wrong. The effort has been exceptional, and that level of incredible musical talent should earn DJ Hero serious consideration this fall, perhaps even over the latest Rock Band and Guitar Hero entries.

Jeff:
The real star of DJ Hero is without a doubt the music. The game boasts 93 mashup tracks that are sure to appeal to music tastes of all kinds with some of the most renowned DJs in the business lending their talents to the game.

So how does it play? DJ Hero is an interesting beast as its wireless turntable controller must be played on flat surface. We found success laying it on an ottoman while sitting on a couch behind it. For the most part, the tapping, crossfading, and scratching works, but you may have a problem with the button closest to the center of the faux record. Since it's anchored so closely to the center, it's tougher to scratch than the outer buttons. Regardless of how you orientate the controller, that last button may give you a problem.

The crossfader is also tough to master as its center position is not as easy to detect as you might think. During songs you'll have to switch it left and right, but we wish the center was more noticeable just by feeling its position--a definitive notch here would have helped.

DJ Hero may have less of an appeal to the more mainstream Guitar Hero franchise fan; it's a different demographic that this game is trying to reach. That combined with the intimidation of finding room for yet another plastic accessory and its $120 price tag may turn off prospective buyers.

Dan:
We've spoken before about the threat of guitar game fatigue, with semiannual installments of music games vying for consumer's increasingly stretched dollars. Successfully injecting a little new life into the genre, DJ Hero is the biggest sea change in music games since the addition of drum kits.

(Credit: CNET)

It appears all the bacon sandwiches and soda have finally caught up with our very own Justin Yu as he is once again not with us for the show. Instead, we are graced by two special guests.

For the first half of the show our buddy Sean Cullinane stops by to help us understand why there are a lot more Phillies hats being worn in New York City today than Yankees hats and to pick apart our Motorola Droid review sample. What this phone lacks in style points it makes up in weight--it's the heaviest cell phone we've ever held!

For the second half of our program Natali Del Conte joins in for some calls from the public and a discussion about Netflix streaming coming to the Wii. Also, we announce our winner of the Ratch & Clank Favorite Weapon contest!

All this and much more on today's 404.

EPISODE 456

(Credit: W Joey Jones)

What happens when one extremely popular tech TV show with an attractive female host blatantly takes the slogan of a much lesser known Internet radio show with three mildly humorous, if not a bit awkward, post-pubescent manboys? You're about to find out on today's episode of The 404, where Attack of the Show's GadgetPr0n stole our tagline, "High Tech, Low Brow." Now, I'm a little unwilling to compromise my relationship with Olivia Munn, the , but Jeff and Wilson are heated and propose an all-out battle for the right to the slogan!

The new simulated reality video game DJ Hero keeps on adding musicians to the growing list of special guests- this time, they just recently announced a collaboration with Daft Punk. The game will come out on October 30th, but we're pretty psyched to mash-up tracks from those French Robots. Well, Jeff and I are- Wilson is still confused about how the game works and why people listen to music in the first place.

Which brings us to a huge Calls From the Public- we got so many voicemails over our three-day weekend that we have to take the entire second half of the show just to play them all. Of course, we have to re-visit the dreadful washing machine/computer hypothetical that got drummed up on Thursday's show. In a world where humans are enslaved by free-thinking computers, the man atop the washing machine reigns supreme King. This fall, look out for Wilson G. Tang break-out role in...THE CLEANER.

We've known the specs for the Zune HD since May, and I've even gotten a couple brief hands-on demonstrations, but I discovered a few more surprises in the run-up to the retail release Tuesday.

(Credit: Microsoft)

My favorite surprise on the device was a new feature called Quickplay. It solves one of the greatest problems with an MP3 player: as you add more music, it gets harder to find and immediately start playing the songs you're most excited about. Quickplay basically adds an alternate menu on the Zune home screen--it appears as collection of small album covers, offset slightly to the left of the main start menu--which automatically displays songs you've most recently played, as well as songs you've most recently added. You can also manually "pin" songs and albums to the menu. I also liked the way images (such as artist photos) drawn from the Zune Marketplace and cached to your device gradually scroll across the screen as you play a particular song, giving you more to look at than a static album cover.

Within the Zune PC software, my favorite surprise was the Smart DJ feature, which sets up an endlessly rotating playlist based on a particular song or artist. Like a lot of other Zune features, it works best if you've got a Zune Pass (which costs $14.99 a month)--in this case, it'll rotate not only through songs in your collection but also through the millions of songs in the Zune Marketplace, delivering the same kinds of surprises that Pandora fans have grown to love. If you don't have the Zune Pass, it simply draws songs from your collection, similar to how iTunes Genius works (in this case, Marketplace songs are greyed out but clickable if you want to buy them).

Zune's Smart DJ feature put together this playlist based on The Pixies. Here, it's playing a song from the Zune Marketplace--a cover of Jimi Hendrix's "Stone Free" by the group Belly.

There were also a couple of mild unfortunate surprises. First, Microsoft has removed the "squirting" feature, which let you send songs directly from one Zune to another. This feature was supposed to be a big selling point of the first Zune but was crippled by unreasonable rights restrictions that let you play songs only three times or within three days (whichever came first). Microsoft and content owners gradually loosened those restrictions, but the feature never made much difference--mainly because there were so few Zune users out there to exchange songs with. (The "first man with a telephone" problem.) Now it's gone. You can still share songs with your friends through the Zune's social-networking features--if you have a Zune Pass, then any song in any of your Zune contacts' library will be immediately playable on your machine--but that requires an active wireless connection and isn't quite as spontaneous as the Zune-to-Zune sharing. That said, I only used it a handful of times in the three years since I've had a Zune.

The other disappointment is the complete lack of a competitor to Apple's App Store for the iPhone and iPod Touch. There will be applications, including games, but Microsoft will release them directly to users through the Zune Marketplace or within software updates. There are no public APIs for developers, no distribution model, and more surprisingly, no immediate plans to connect to the Windows Marketplace for Mobile, Microsoft's app store for Windows Mobile phones, which launches on October 6. Why? Because Microsoft wants to build only one app store, and it can't be sure that apps built for Windows Mobile will work on the Zune HD.

There's plenty of other great stuff about the Zune HD, including a built-in HD Radio, bright touch screen, high-definition video output, and all the great wireless and social-networking features introduced in previous versions. It's the best Microsoft MP3 player yet and the first to pose a credible competitor to the iPod Touch, although it's still focused on digital audio and video, while the Touch (and iPhone) is more of a portable computer.

Be sure to check back later this week for the full updated review from CNET's Donald Bell, and we'll both be posting more personal impressions of the new device as we live and work with it throughout the coming weeks.

From the creators of "Drawn Together" comes "DJ & The Fro," a new daily, animated show on MTV. The 404 speaks to the creators, Matt Silverstein and Dave Jeser, about the show and talk about how Michael Jackson's death almost ruined the shows' first few episodes.

(Credit: MTV Networks)

The show creators call it a rip-off of "Beavis and Butthead" for the viral video generation. DJ and the Fro are two twenty-somethings, who spend most of their day watching viral videos and commenting on them. Sounds eerily similar to what The 404 guys do all day long. Anyway, the guys tell us about how the show came into being and let us know that a "Drawn Together" straight-to-DVD movie is coming out as well!

"DJ & The Fro" reminds us a bit of "Tosh.0" on Comedy Central, which premiered just a few weeks ago. The 404 guys think we should have jumped on to this bandwagon a long time. This is what we do already for the show every day!

Anyway, hope you all enjoy the abbreviated show along with our Michael Jackson commentary. He will be missed. Spend your weekend listening to your favorite MJ jam and reminisce about the fond memories you had while karaoking to "Billie Jean."