Check It Out: A Polar Joystick for Omnisphere Orb

I recently had the fortune to work with Ron Nelson from Seven Mile Mountain. Ron builds small, affordable controllers for various uses. I was looking for a physical joystick to control the Orb feature of Omnisphere and purchased Ron’s SOLO : USB MIDI Control Change Joystick on his Etsy store. It seemed the ideal solution for a straightforward and tactile way to interact with this area of Omnisphere that up until then I had mostly ignored. The controller arrived and I began playing with it, but the movements on the joystick seemed to not correlate at all with the changes in the software. I contacted Ron and we began conversing about my specific use. This issue was that the joystick transmitted Cartesian coordinates, whereas Orb needed to see Polar coordinates. Ron completely reprogrammed the controller and added several new features including the option to send both Cartesian and Polar data. Very useful!

Ron is planning on incorporating this into future models, but in the meantime you can contact him, tell him what you’re looking for, and I’m sure he can create a pre-production model for you pretty quickly. It seems to be one of the few hardware options out there that will work for this purpose, and it is certainly the best priced. Here’s a video that explains the build.

Check It Out: Creating Music for Film, TV, and Gaming: Foundations

If you are a musician or composer who wants to learn about scoring music to picture, Music Orange composer Michael Lande will be teaching an online course called "MUSC 067A: Creating Music for Film, TV, and Gaming: Foundations" at West Valley College this Fall. There are still a couple of weeks to sign up and you can take the class from anywhere.

Enroll on the West Valley College website.

Check It Out: 1967 Gibson Factory Tour

Gibson recently discovered archival footage from 1967 that takes the viewer through Gibson’s original Kalamazoo, Michigan factory. It’s a fascinating look back through time.

Check It Out: Understanding the Math Behind the Fourier Transform

If you’re a musician or engineer, you’ve probably come across plugins that utilize Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) for audio analysis, audio restoration, and sound design. The Fourier Transform allows us to dissect a complex waveform into its component simple sine waves. It’s an amazing and powerful tool, but can be a little difficult to get your head around. The 3Blue1Brown YouTube channel has created an entertaining and the easiest to understand explanation of the math behind the Fourier Transform that we have seen. Watch the video and see for yourself.

Check It Out: Google Guitar Tuner

Google has added a guitar tuner to its arsenal of apps. To access it, just type ‘google guitar tuner’ into Google’s search bar. It’s simple, but works accurately and easily and is pretty handy if you’re playing along with a song on your computer, doing notation, or checking out a YouTube instructional video.

Check It Out: Learn Music Scoring from Music Orange

MUSIC067A: Music for Film, TV, and Gaming: Foundations

Interested in learning the foundations of scoring music to film, tv, and games? Music Orange composer Michael Lande will be teaching just that in an online class this Fall at West Valley College! There's still time to register at https://www.westvalley.edu/.

Check It Out: MO/OW Design Available

Design available as a hoodie or t-shirt at the Music Orange Shop.

Check It Out: Spongebob, "Agua", and Music Orange

Who says playing the penny whistle doesn’t pay off? One of Music Orange’s founders, Blaise Smith, just received an ASCAP award for the use of his SpongeBob Squarepants penny whistle sample in one of the year’s most played latin tracks, J. Balvin and Tainy’s “Agua.” Cue the penny whistle and turn up the volume.

Check It Out: Noel Fielding to Write Netflix Show About an Enchanted Turntable

British comedian and co-creator of the cult comedy series The Mighty Boosh, Noel Fielding, is making a new show for Netflix. "Basically a guy gets hold of a magic record player and when you put the record player on a portal appears and you can go inside your favourite albums," Fielding said. Sounds as strange and surreal as The Boosh to us and is something that is on our radar. No word yet on when it will air.

Did You Know We Have Our Own Cocktail?

Check It Out: Bandcamp to Start a Vinyl Pressing Service

Bandcamp is starting what is essentially an integrated Kickstarter-like vinyl pressing service for its members. Offer an lp for sale, and once enough people purchase it Bandcamp will press and ship out the records. Bandcamp says the new service will eliminate the risk and hassle typically associated with a vinyl record run. Sounds like a good idea to us. You can learn more here.

Check It Out: David Gilmour to Auction Off His Personal Guitar Collection

On June 20, 2019, legendary guitarist David Gilmour of Pink Floyd will be auctioning off more than 120 guitars from his personal collection, including Fender Broadcasters, Esquires, Telecasters and Stratocasters. There will be a preview the week before the auction, and bidding is expected to start at $300. We assume final prices will be on the pricey side, but it’s a chance to own a piece of history plus all proceeds go charity. Check it out here.

Check It Out: Spitfire's 2018 Reverb World Cup

The guys from Spitfire Audio posted their 2018 "Reverb World Cup" where they do a blind listening test on various software and hardware reverbs. The least expensive is the $50 Valhalla reverb plugin; the most expensive is the $16,000 TC Electronic TC6000 hardware unit. The list of reverbs they compare is by no means complete so do not look at this as a recommendation on what reverb to buy, but the exercise is still worth watching. The results are not as straightforward as you'd expect. Check it out here.